The barn presented a number of interesting challenges on the concrete front. The first picture here is of the corner of the original barn with the concrete blocks in place.
You can see the first layer is laid perpendicular to the subsequent layers. Essentially the barn is a 50 x 40 rectangle of concrete blocks with a center support wall running between the two 40ft. sides and parallel to the 50 ft walls. The side where the cows ate had dirt floors and the milking side had old river rock concrete and was sloped to deal with cow runoff. The entire barn needed concrete and we poured about 6-8 inches on the dirt side and 4-5 on the other on top of the existing concrete.
On the milking side we had to fill in the trench and level the concrete the sloped. Some of the concrete had to be cut to remove old fixtures and put new plumbing down. Even the cutters were astounded at the hardness of the original river rock stuff and they broke several blades cutting it.
So, as you're looking at these. The first photo is described with the blocks. The second is what the dirt side looked like after the concrete pour looking through the barn. The third and fourth is the milking side just prior (with gravel in the cleaning trench) and after the concrete was poured and the stamping dust was put on the concrete. The fifth is the concrete with the cuts and the stamping somewhat completed.
Yes, we decided to stamp the concrete on the milking side as that was going to become a bar/social area. You have to cut concrete at 12 ft. intervals to prevent it from breaking. To mask the cuts, we put in several decorative lines that you can see more easily in the last photo of the actual bar area (previously a cooler area for milk.)
The entire concrete ordeal was a learning experience and I'll be revisiting both in future blogs as concrete and wood start merging in the eventual design. We will probably be filling in some of the decorative areas as they are tedious to clean as we've gone through the process.
No comments:
Post a Comment