Restoring Beautiful Old Timber-Frame Barn in Midcoast Maine

Lowell and Jun's Journey to Restore a Historic Barn & Create a Community Farm

Lowell and Jun in front of their barn.

Hi, my older brother and his wife are in the process of reviving an old, neglected farm including a post and beam barn built in the early 1800s. Lowell and Jun hired a barn restoration expert before they bought the property in 2021 and he advised them that the barn was an excellent candidate for restoration.

Lowell and Jun have done almost all the work so far by themselves, including cutting white pine trees on the farm and milling them on their Norwood bandsaw mill into timbers for the restoration.

Hauling logs to the Norwood mill.

My brother is not getting any younger - he’s 77 - and the reason I’ve launched this campaign on their behalf is to provide the money for them to break their hardcore DIY habit and finally hire some skilled labor help. The immediate objective is to get the foundation and structure straight and to put a new roof on, hopefully by this fall.​

Lowell and Jun have practiced organic, sustainable farming their whole lives. Lowell has a Master of Environmental Science degree and spent many years running his own organic farm, managing others and working for environmental organizations. Jun grew up in far western rural China with her talented peasant grandparents from whom she learned many traditional farming practices. Lowell and Jun’s vision is to create an organic self-sufficient community farm with one or more resident co-farmers, work exchange helpers and paying vacationers.

Lunch in the stabilized barn, first floor.

The place was a complete mess when they first bought it and they spent the entire first year tearing down old buildings and hauling off trash.

The only decent building on the farm was the timber frame barn sitting on an excellent stone foundation but all grown in with huge trees, filled with trash and definitely needing work. (As an example of how hard working they are, they spent two weeks carefully digging out - by hand - the stump of a huge birch tree that had grown up close to the foundation in order to avoid disturbing the stone foundation wall. They still have another oak stump to dig out on the other end.)

I can't believe they dug this out by hand.

Lowell and Jun found a young architect on Upwork who worked with them to design the layout and overall design of the beautiful, spacious barn house they intend to create as their living quarters, community center and occasional guest house. The vision of that beautiful space is what keeps them going day to day.

But first they had to spend two years rebuilding every aspect of missing farm infrastructure completely by themselves - a small cabin to replace the camper, underground electric and internet service, water lines and hydrants, a complete septic system, a small barn for their milking Jersey cow, a huge 30 X 72 heated greenhouse (they’re growing figs in Maine!) which serves as “community central” at the moment. In 2023 they built a 24 X 36 workshop with an apartment above so they could live with some degree of comfort. The attached “boiler room” contains a large wood-fired hydronic heater which sends hot water for heating to the workshop, the apartment, the greenhouse and the barn house.

Massive wood fired boiler and manifold.

Certain critical steps were taken to stabilize the barn during those two years as well including cutting down the trees that had grown up next to the barn, building “cribbing towers” to support weak points in the frame, and replacing missing posts with temporary timbers. The dry stone foundation is in nearly perfect condition - even after nearly 200 years - because the barn sits on deep hard packed fine sand which quickly drains water away while remaining firm and solid.

Cribbing towers.

Now the barn restoration is underway again in earnest. With help from their current work exchange volunteer they lowered the bottom floor by removing tons of hard packed sand by hand shovel - wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow - to create more headroom for the basement level and have begun building new concrete footings for the six interior support posts. Before winter hit last fall, they had a guy help put a 50 X 50 tarp over the entire roof to protect it from further water damage.

Lowell and I discussing the foundation.

Jun and Kristen lowering basement floor.

The next steps consist of capping the foundation with concrete to a consistent elevation, building a 24 foot long concrete support wall to support sills and posts where the open entry to the bottom level used to be, and replacing all the 8 X 8 X 12 sills and the degraded bottom portions of the main support posts to fully straighten the barn to its original straight and true dimensions. After that, new 4 X 8 X 12 floor joists will be installed with a tongue and groove subfloor attached above them to support a 3” concrete floor with hydronic heating tubes embedded. That heated thermal mass will provide the heating source for the whole barn house and contribute comfortable warm floors for occupants.

Here's how you can support this barn restoration project:

If you're local or willing to travel, Lowell and Jun would welcome volunteers to join in the restoration process. Whether you're skilled in carpentry, landscaping, or simply eager to lend a hand, they would love to have you! The farm is already listed on two work exchange platforms - Worldpackers and HelpX- and they have already hosted several helpers.

I’m Roger, Lowells’s younger brother (not by much), and I promise to provide regular updates on the progress with lots of photos and commentary.

Our fundraising target is for Phase One of this project: Getting the barn squared up and dried in.

We’ll let you know how the money gets spent and what it accomplishes.

Thank you for considering being a part of this journey. Together, we can restore and rebuild this beautiful old barn as a spacious and modern house and create something truly special.

Thank you Bryan Cheney for your donation of cedar shingles.