“I’m one of four siblings from a big family in Louisiana. We family members live all over but, together, we own family land in Sabine Parish. It was our grandparent’s 220-acre farm that’s been handed down through the generations. This old farm is about half in timber, hardwood and pine.
20 years ago, we built a log cabin here the whole family shared on weekends and vacations. It gave our children the experience of living in the country. Now we have 13 kids between us and we’ve brought them all here as they’ve grown up.
That worked wonderfully for 20 years but recently our mom – our kids’ grandmother – passed away and we wanted to memorialize her. We wanted to build a family legacy as our family continues to grow, get married, and have children.
Project Grandma
The family decided to build another building with more space for our whole big family. We searched for plans and generated ideas. We found a website by an old timber frame expert and selected a plan for a Kentucky-style horse barn. We decided we could use the aisle as a communal area and the stalls as bedrooms and bathrooms. We call the new building the ‘Grandma Annex.’ And we called the whole project ‘Project Grandma.’
We did the math and saw that we could buy a sawmill and pay for it with money we’d save sawing our own lumber. So we researched sawmills. We talked to others and TimberKing’s selling feature for us was all the hydraulics. Long term, you get much longer life from hydraulics than electronics. Plus, the TimberKing’s 4-post head is very stable. It’s easy to use and it’s just been great. So far, we have 135 hours on it.
We got a TimberKing 1400 sawmill and sawed our own timber from this old farm. It’ll take logs up to 20’ long and 34” in diameter. Of course we’ve maxed out on the width. You learn as you go.
Whole-family barn raising
All 24 members of our family got involved in a big family barn raising – all the kids, all the siblings, and all the spouses. We’re all in the video. We cut all the posts, beams, purlins, and more from Southern yellow pine, oak, hickory, and sycamore. And we cut the siding from cypress.
Better boards than big box stores
The quality of the boards is comparable to what you’d buy in a big box store — better, actually. I taught the kids to ‘crown’ a board but they’re so straight you hardly can find a natural crown.
We stacked the boards in a covered barn with a good base and we stickered them. Even so, I’ve been amazed at how little warping we’ve had. We estimated we’d have 20% loss to warping or mistakes so we sawed 20% more than the plans called for. But we lost only 5% to warpage. We sawed all our posts 6 x 8”. And we resawed other 6 x 8’s into 2 x 6’s we used for framing.
Amazing to take a log and turn it into lumber
We’re very happy with the TimberKing. It’s really amazing to take a log and turn it into lumber. Amazing! We’ve had no mechanical issues at all. And we’ve cut a lot of wood.
We all have regular day jobs so this project will take a year or so to finish. We still have a lot to do – frame the inside and side the outside. We’ll have an outdoor kitchen and fireplace, and all the Annex will be wood inside. 100% wood, no sheetrock.
A precious family experience
The most valuable result of this project is being able to engage all our kids in the construction. Right now, they’re putting in bracing and raising rafters. They’re all 20-somethings and building the ‘Grandma Annex’ gives them a chance to do something together and learn about construction.
It’s really gratifying to build a family barn from our own timber on our own place. It’s the way we could build something valuable, even precious. And all our children got involved and invested in it.”
Watch the Andries’ barn raising video!
— Brian Andries, TimberKing 1400 Owner (with his siblings John, Rob, and Yvette), Baton Rouge LA
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