This month we're featuring the beautiful 20'x 30' gambrel barn of Wayne & Rosie Barnes.....how appropriate. Wayne & Rosie not only keep a nice home on the Big Island of Hawaii, they own a ranch in Matakana, New Zealand near Auckland.....where the men are men and the sheep are nervous. New Zealand, home to the curious little flightless bird, the kiwi and fabled land where the water spins the other way when you flush the toilet! But that's not all that's different about the "Land Down Under".... no sir-eee!! They've got a little different approach to putting a barn together, as well.

Site graded and slab poured, Wayne set about assembling the trusses......but not our engineered wooden trusses. He used the exact dimensions and proportions from the plan details but instead of 2x4's he welded them together out of 4"x 8" rectangular 10 gauge steel tubing!!

Each of the "Ribs" incorporated not only the roof portion, but the walls, as well. The wall height is the same as the plans call for.....so are the "rafter" lengths and pitches. From the outside, you wouldn't know they used the steel framework. They used a huge hydraulic crane to set the frames in place and attached them to anchors that had previously been set along the edge of the concrete slab.

Once the steel framework had been set, it was a simple matter to tie them together with the roof joists and typical New Zealand "criss-cross" wall framing. Notice they didn't waste any time getting the "Crow's Beak", weathervane and "Hay Hook" up on the front of the barn!!

Inside, the rest of the wood framing is put into place. Wayne installed another 4x8 steel beam to provide support for the loft floor.

16' wide and 12' high, the doors are also steel framed....light, strong and BIG!

The red corrugated steel roof goes great with the prefinished cedar they used on the exterior walls. They wrapped the whole thing in Tyvek

Windows, trim and a concrete apron across the front and the combination barn/ranch-hand quarters/sleeping loft/guest house is finished.....absolutely fantastic!! They even had enough cedar and metal roof scraps left over to build a very cool gambrel "chicken barn"!!

Talk about "open house".....now that what I call a front door!! Wayne finished off the inside with a touch of the cedar siding at the loft railing, a small downstairs bathroom and a wood stove....ready to move in!

So, here's Wayne, Rosie and their flock, posing in their very own version of the classic "American Gothic".....New Zealand Gothic. You guys do it a little different down there, but you get it done and you get it done with style!! Nice Job!!