This month we're going to visit with Gary and Karen Tkaczyk (pronounced Kay-Zik) in Lunenburg, VT. Gary is a retired computer programmer and Karen is a professional floral designer. Together with their extended family (just about every other Tkaczyk in creation) they built this great looking 28x40 two story gambrel Garage/Shop. This just goes show you what can get accomplished during a family reunion. Moreover, it shows you what a great husband and wife team, like Gary & Karen, can do all by their little ol' lonesome!! They built and installed all of the trusses, sheeted the roof, installed the metal roofing, installed the Hardi-board siding and all of the doors and windows…all by themselves!!

Gary's gonna tell you all about it....

My wife and I retired to 16 acres in Northern Vermont (with a really nice view). We needed a barn, for vehicles, antique truck restoration, woodworking and a second floor art studio and game area. We started researching for gambrel barn plans having never built any kind of structure before. We wanted an open plan for the second floor, ideally without the need for interior walls to support the roof. We settled on Dano's plans at BarnPlans, Inc.... BarnPlans.com. They met this requirement, plus a better tie-in without rim joists to keep the side wall from pushing out over time. Their engineered blueprints provide the strongest structure of all available plans. We made only one change..... 2x 6 wall framing instead of 2x4 for additional insulation.

We selected the best site as our land is mostly sloped.

We clear cut the site.

Our next door neighbor runs a logging and trucking company.... he delivered all the fill.

Our other neighbor runs a mason company. We contracted with him to prepare the building site....

....and pour the foundation.

Our difficult driveway nearly claims another victim.

First floor lumber arrives.

The walls and loft floor were built over an extended weekend by family members, including my brother, his wife, their son and family, our 2 sons and daughter-in-law, who came from Oregon, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. We framed and partially sided the walls flat on the slab.

Then stood them up with the help of our Kubota tractor.

The walls went really fast.... we had them up by the end of the first day.

We installed all of the floor joists.... 2x12x14's @ 16"OC.

We nailed up some more 5/8" plywood shear panel....

..... and lifted up the 3/4" T&G plywood....

.... for the loft floor.

Well, the family had to leave and go back to their respective homes, which left my wife, Karen, and me to finish the build. We spent the next month cutting gussets.....

.... and truss chords, with a radial arm and a jig saw.

We assembled the trusses according to Dano's plans and erected them using a small winch, bolted to the second floor sill plate....

.... with a stranded cable run thru a pulley and down to the truss.

I lifted the truss up a bit from the floor, and my wife ran the winch.

One by one we winched them into place.

Karen and I got all of the trusses up all by ourselves!

Another month or so to sheet and seal the roof.

On the ground or twenty feet in the air.... Karen was right there with me every step of the way.

I worked on the metal roof for about a month.

Then on to windows and doors. I'd lift Karen up in the loader....

.....and we installed them upstairs in the front gable end.

Then it started snowing so we buttoned it up for the Winter.

In the Spring we installed the overhead doors.

The siding was next.

The siding is special order James Hardie Co. concrete Hardiepanel, factory pre-painted in "Countrylane Red". Panels were 4' x 10' and weighed in at about 100 pounds each. We also used factory pre-painted Maze nails. Those who have seen the barn want to build one for themselves, and one of the contractors asked if we would build one for him!

Hi Dano,

Here's the "who's who" in the last photo. (they're all Tkaczyk's) Left to right:

Front row: Tucker and Oscar (the dogs)

Next row: Tyler (in black), Brent and Amy's son , then Brent, my brother Dick's son (our nephew), then Luke, Brent and Amy's son, then Christine, our Daughter-in-law.

Next row: Amy, Brent's wife (black sweater with stripe blue shirt), then my wife Karen (red shirt), then me (suspenders).

Back row: our son Ben (dark grey shirt), then Anne (our Sister-in law), then my brother Dick (Anne's Husband and Brent's Dad), then our son Jim (black shirt).

The "total family build" was my brother Dick's idea, and he and Anne came all the way from Portland, OR. Brent, Amy, Luke, Tyler and Tucker came from Northwood, New Hampshire. They're both teachers, but Brent builds houses in the Summer.

Our son Ben, his wife Christine, and Oscar came from Haddam Neck, Connecticut. Our son Jim came from Cambridge, Mass. Later in the build, our 2 daughters, Bethany and Rebecca, came to help, with their fiance's Dan and Ed, from Burlington, Connecticut and Westfield, Mass, respectively.

Your loyal servant,
Gary Tkaczyk