I blogged a couple months ago about renovating our barn. It's the barn that houses the kid's 4-H animals. For better or for worse, we've decided to use some of our home equity to finance the repairs.

One side of the barn will be used for storage - straw, haw, animal show equipment. The other side will be used to house animals. So, we are only renovating the side that houses the animals. We've reduced the number of animals in the barn while we work on the renovation. Right now all we have is one laying chicken, one duck, and one goat.

I've removed and burned all the lumber that made to old pens. I'm working on cleaning out all of the manure. I have pretty much all of it out, and am probably ready to power wash.

We'll also side the barn, and put on a new roof.

We're in the middle of getting bids. Some of the work we will do ourselves, some of it we will hire out.

Here's my (current)budget:

Siding and roof materials - $6,800
Inside labor - $2,500
Outside labor - $2,000
Water hookup - $1,600
Lumber and adhesive - $1,050
Gates - $1,130
Feeders - $185
Hardware cloth (for chicken coop) - $136
Lighting and electric materials - $100
Pins and hinges for stalls - $75
Misc. hardware - $48
Gate closers - $26
Total - $15,650

The only number that I pulled completely out of the air is water hookup. The plumber hasn't been out to give a bid. I've guessed $1,600. Hopefully that's on the high side. We'll either run a pipe underground from the house (about 75 feet), or punch in a point well at the barn. Whatever we do, it'll need to be frost-free.

The outside labor (putting on roof and siding) is also a guess. We've not gotten a bid. But, when the materials supplier was adding up his bid, he guessed $2,000. So, I'm using that as a semi solid number.

The lighting and electric materials and misc. hardware are also my guesses.

When we started out, I was hoping for a 12K budget. The first quote we got was $6,800 for the siding and roofing materials. So, I knew then that the total project budget would have to be increased. Hopefully the plumber comes out this week to give a bid. Then, I'll be satisfied that we'll have a decent working budget.

This is a lot of money for an asset that doesn't provide us with shelter, or substantial income. But, if you've been following my blog for any time, you know just how important these livestock project are to our family.