Family History

Mom and Dad need to knock down the old Grainery on the family land. My Grandma brought the west side of the Grainery into the farm about 80 years ago. It was on another farm and the building was brought in already built. Daddy built the east side after the building received some tornado damage and made it more than twice its size. This side had grain bins that you would auger the wheat into after harvest and this would be your seed wheat for the next crop. There were up and down sliding panels on the bins to adjust depending on how much wheat was in the bin. We kids loved to play in the bins. Very dangerous; we could have slipped under the wheat and suffocated but we didn't know that and we were having fun.

The building was not new when it was hauled to our land. So, it is very possible the building and the wood are around 100 years old. In Oklahoma that is considered old.

When my brother heard the Grainery was coming down he immediately said, "MaryBeth, why don't you use the old tongue and groove floor somewhere in your house." Great idea! Bad floor! The floor was too rotted out to use. A lot of moisture had collected on those floors from the grain sitting on it and just being exposed to the elements. We looked at the wall and discovered a treasure. Thank you Winder for thinking of this. 

 It was a cold blustery day when we started taking down the wood. The building had sheet metal on it over the wood. That's why the wood is still useable; it had been protected from the weather.

 You may not think that this wood is cool? You may think it's even ugly?  Just wait!

Wyatt came along to help pull off the wood. His biggest job was; when we got the wood down he had to go through each one make sure all the nails were out and if not get them out then load them onto the trailer by size.

 These are tongue and groove planks. The builders put a 45 degree nail into each of the tongues and then two nails went into each stud. This is why the building had withstood a 100 years of Oklahoma weather; with our winds and tornadoes. It just can't stand up against our hammers and pry bars.

This kid works as hard as most adults. Too bad the cows weren't in any of the pictures. There is nothing prettier than black cows against the green wheat. Cows are very curious creatures and when you are doing something; they come investigate. They also think the pick up is there to feed them.

 
 Thank goodness for an oversize garage. There was weather moving in so we just pulled the trailer in and parked our cars behind it. We never want to feel pressured that we have to get something done in this building process. If the wood was outside we would feel that we needed to jump on the job.















The only thing done to the wood was to give it a good bath. There were mud dauber nests, honey combs, and a 100 years worth of dust encrusted on the wood.

After a bath we saw the wood is a beautiful Red Oak.

We laid the wood out on the Residence floor to let it dry. Have to keep it flat so as it dries it won't warp. The wood was so dry it just sucked up the water and took several days to dry. The best method to dry the wood would have been to put it in a kiln alas, we do not own one. Look at the neat character with all the nail holes.

Couldn't wait, had to throw a few boards up to see if this is really the look we want.

 

 There are some holes in the boards from where some varmits have chewed through. The wheat was a tasty treat they wanted to get to. When taking down the wood we saw where my Grandpa had cut apart coffee cans and patched the holes with the metal. I threw up patchy stain so the bare backer wood wouldn't show through. Didn't want it to be a solid color behind it, for aesthetics.  That's why the stain is applied against the grain.

 First of the boards going up on the barrel ceiling.

 Oh, it's coming together. The boards are 2" wide so they make the bend of the barrel nicely. 

 

Halfway around. Bill is working in hour and a half sessions.  It took us three hours to pull the wood down with three of us working, an hour to wash the boards and bring them in and a total of 4 and a half hours to put the wood up. One of the longest projects for the size but so worth it.

 Last board going in. That one is always the trickiest because the full width is never needed, you have to squeeze it between the ceiling and the wall while using the tongue and groove. And of course the texture is  not going to be perfectly straight. Once the board is up everything looks good it's just getting it up. Bill talked with Daddy to get some hints to make it easy and Daddy just laughed.
 
 It's done!!!!

 

We only had 75 watt clear bulbs to put into the light fixture so we had to turn the lights off and shine a flashlight up to get this picture. The glare was too bad to see anything and we could have performed surgery in the hallway with those bulbs.











Here we have the correct bulbs in. Isn't it beautiful?!?!?!? Bill got the old fashioned looking bulbs for the fixture. They were a surprise for me for when I came back from Mom and Dad's last night.

 Family is the most important thing to Bill and I and to have part of our family history in our house means so much. Grandma would be happy. I can just imagine her in the kitchen cooking her tasty roast and looking out at the hall to see this wood. I miss that woman a lot.