Day 132 - To Store or Not to Store

The barn was lofted. We had ample room for storage. Unfortunately, there was also ample room for improvement.

Besides being caked with dust and incredibly dirty, some of the wood was rotted out and in desperate need for replacement. Not having the time and treasure to take on this project at the time, we focused on the good wood areas and planned out how we could utilize the space. The previous owner left a few gems up there, including some two by fours, a few sheets of aluminum, and a barely held together storage rack.

We opted to use this space for a number of storage items. First, with a big yard, we wanted to decorate it for the holidays. My kids have gotten interested in the inflatable decorations so one section of the loft was the perfect place to store these quirky characters when they were deflated. We also used this area to keep our unlit holiday lights.

Seasonal changes also made storage situations a bit tricky. In winter, we used the loft as  a place to put some of the summer toys so they were protected from the often brutal elements of a Wisconsin winter. In summer, the loft was home to our snowshoes, shovels, and sleds. 

Putting up and taking down these various items reminded me of one of the less desirable tasks in the creation of the coops. Because some of the wood above the coops was either rotted m cracked, or completely missing, I had to crawl up there in the dust, dirt, and debris to staple hardware cloth over any gaps in the wood. While it left the coops more fortified from above, it also left my body sore and my arms and hands scraped and scratched.

But this extra room did provide us some ideas for what could be our future. Would we fill up the barn with more heavy duty equipment and need to move things up top? Would we need storage space for a potential business? Would we lose storage space by turning current storage stalls into new animal stalls?

Time will tell, but for now, we found a great new time to store up above.