Barn Cupola

[Planman1954]

Hello Everybody.
Progress has been SLOW on the barn building. Time has been limited to work on it, due to my REAL job. Anyway, I took a few photos today of the cupola, which will go on the top center of the barn roof. I ordered a weathervane today today to sit on top of it...so the top is bare at the moment. The cupola will be a functional vent for air circulation. Most of the lumber is 3/4" pine cut on my lumbermate. There is a little 8" pine beveled lap siding on the base, and the top shingles are cypress. I had a little cypress given to me by pineywoods, as well as a few cypress shingles left over from a job done by another friend of mine, Leroy, from which I was able to complete the little top.



This is the base (with the lap siding) and the center louvered section. The louvered section is made to fit into the lower section, so we can lift the thing up on the roof in sections. I've only painted part of it with semi-transparent oil stain...cedar bark is the color from sherwin williams.



This is the top (Section #3) of the cupola. It is made to fit on the louvered middle section. It has cypress shingles. I'll be putting on a cedar semi transparent oil stain to get some uniform color to match the other pine shingles on the barn.



Here's a straight on photo of the barn today. As you can see, I've got it stripped out, and ready for the final shingles on the main body of it...the sides are done. I wanted to put the cupola on now so that I can shingle up to and around the flashing, which I installed already. The flashing sits about 3/4" above the bottom of the cupola so that I can slip a couple of shingles under it, and then place a third layer over it to make it PURTY, as pineywoods says. Later fellers.

[bandmiller2]

Planman 54,your a skilled carpenter, would be hard to hire someont to take the time to do work like yours. Frank C.

[Holmes]

Your barn is looking great. What weathervane are you getting? A bird an animal or what? Holmes

[Planman1954]

Thanks bandmiller2. When I did the shingle thread a while back, I stated that I wanted to do a thread on building the barn sawn totally on the lumbermate. I hope to still do that one day, and tie all the different threads together in one place...But time, time, time...

Holmes: For now, the weathervane will be a traditional rooster. Since we have goats, I had hoped to spring for that, but we have chickens too, so the rooster will have to do. I found an inexpensive one on ebay that I ordered today. I didn't know how expensive a weathervane could be!

[Slabs]

Accolades to you.  It's great to see someone constructing adornments like that.

[Planman1954]

OK..so this past weekend, my stepson came over to help me put the cupola on the barn. It was not as easy as I'd hoped. Each of the 3 sections weighs about as much as a small chest of drawers. We first tried going up 2 ladders, each holding the side of the base with one hand, and the other holding on for dear life to the ladder with the other. When we got to the top...no way to set the thing onto the roof. So we backed back down. It was time for the backup plan (which in retrospect should have been the first plan...oh well.)
We toted the base to the interior stairs of the building, shoved it out the side second story window onto the side roof, walked it over to the main roof, sat it on, and then proceeded to the top of the main gable. Not bad...it was easy in fact. My wife took a few pictures, but the camera was set wrong, and they were blurry. I posted them anyway:









I'll be posting a better picture of the finished product this week on the "making and installing wood shingles" thread, since I'll be wrapping up the shingles this week..God bless.

[Tim]

Its good to see that you didn't make the mistake of solid sheeting the roof deck for the wood shingles.

[Planman1954]

Hello All:

After reading DonK's thread on building his woodworking shop, I got inspired to go outside and take a few pictures and update some of my older threads. It's a rainy day outside, so I couldn't work on my latest project (a rear fence for the barn I've been building.)
I climbed up on the roof of the barn and took a picture of the cupola. I couldn't get any closer since my foot slipped once just to get this close to the cupola. You can also see the wood shingles I finished about 6 months back. They seem to be doing great.
I've been working the last 2 months on a 4 board fence to keep our goats in at the rear of the barn. After I got the shingles on the barn and it was out of the weather, I changed gears and started the fence so that the animals could have a larger place to graze right now. I'm going to start a new thread I'll call"A 4-Board Fence my Norwood Built."
Anyway, here's a couple of photos of the finished cupola:




A closeup view of the barn cupola in place.




A wierd angle looking up from inside the barn of the cupola. It's kind of hard to tell, but it will give good ventilation for the attic of the barn.

Anyway, that's the lastest. Take care.