The Milkbarn Gets a Facelift

It has a number of names...."the milkbarn", "the milking parlor", "mama's shop", "the goatroom".....which tell you what a catch-all this little building is.  It is where I milk the goats, trim their hooves, give them haircuts, plus it is where we store excess canning jars, gardening supplies (starter pots, stakes, etc) as well as chicken feeders not in use, bird cages, and feed barrels......anyway.  It is where all the animal stuff goes so that it is not in the house....plus it is my milking parlor.

Another name for it is a MESS!  Since we haven't done any milking since the end of September, the milkroom has gotten piled high with stuff.  Not to mention the fact that the roof leaks are getting worse and it seriously needs a coat of paint. 

Getting ready for kidding means that we have to get this room in order, and since we were adding a kidding/kid barn to it....we decided to pull the old roof off the milking room and replace it.

Here's how it looked before this project all began...

The new building is attached to the milkroom, and will give us a place to put the does for kidding and a place to house the newborn kids.  Since our livestock guardian dog is still in training (he's just 12 mos old), I do not want to trust him to be with the does when they kid, nor with the newborns.

The milkroom is 8x12 and the new addition is 8x12 as well.  With a winter storm expected for the evening, we were working hard together to get this all pulled together. 

Bob was building and roofing while Rebekah and I emptied the milkroom, and started painting everything.  The new building's walls are waferboard so they had to have a good coat of primer to seal them before the rain came.

Bob pulled off the old roof sheet by sheet in case it started to rain.  Meanwhile Rebekah and I painted around him LOL!

The goats have no idea how fantastic their new maternity ward and milkroom are yet.  But they sure were curious about all the activity.

We got it all done, 13 hours later.  Just in time for the rain to start.  It was too dark to get any final shots of it last night, but I will try to get some today.  We still need to hang the doors and paint the outside, but we accomplished our goal for the day!

Now that the kidding barn (aka maternity room) is nearly ready....I call this picture the Lobby.