Nebraska Office

PO Box 53

Wayne, NE 68787

(402) 286-BARN

“Taking pride in restoring our history and recreating the past”

Marshalltown, IA Couple Restores Historic Barn

Press Release

For Immediate Release

July 31, 2006 For more information, contact: Michelle Sterling-Evans

Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Barn Builders, Inc.

michelle@barn-builders.com

Marshalltown, IA Couple Restores Historic Barn

By Christina Meide

Marshalltown, IA residents Dick and Sharon Breed started the process in 2004 of restoring the old barn on their property. “We were not sure how old the barn really is,” Dick commented “There are dates written in different places within the barn of 1946 and 1896, but we have not been able to officially date it.”

Bruce Willemsen of Pella, IA owner of Barn Builders, Inc. a barn restoration company was hired to do the project. “I figured from different aspects of the barn design and some of the things that we found within it, the barn is about 100 years old,” Willemsen said.

Before making the decision to restore the barn, the Breeds traveled to different areas to take barn tours to determine if restoring it would be worthwhile. “We saw a great deal on the tours, but there was one barn that Bruce was working on that sold us,” Dick said. “That is the one that made our decision for us.” The Breeds were referring to the Handsacker Barn near Nevada, IA which is believed to be the second oldest standing barn in Iowa. Barn Builders had been hired to completely restore that barn also.

According to Willemsen, Dick and Sharon’s barn had been kept up quite well over the years and the restoration project only took three weeks to complete since the weather cooperated nicely with the build crew throughout the project.

“Our job was to repair the stone foundation and cut and fit the new siding or barn boards,” Willemsen stated. “The windows were all replaced with new ones; this was a little more difficult because of the windows odd sizes. Each window had to be custom made for that spot. Electricity was added to the barn and finally the barn was given a whole new paint job.”

The siding came from an old corn crib that used to stand a short distance from the barn. “The boards were all individually made and had to fit in a tongue and groove type of manner,” Willemsen said. The original barn had a shingled rood, but Dick Breed decided to replace it with a metal roof to finish off the restoration of the building.

Willemsen, once a home builder, decided that he would prefer to work on barns to help preserve Iowa’s history and beauty. “What we do gives the barns a whole new skin,” Willemsen said, “However, the barns keep the original character that was decided upon by the original builder.”

The Breeds’ barn has all of the original woodwork inside, including the ladder going from the bottom floor to the top loft, pulleys strung at the peak of the roof for brining in hay, and even some wooden barrels filled with concrete that had been buried part way below ground for the support poles to add more support to the above flooring. There was only one new addition that was added to the inside of the barn. “We asked Bruce to put in a stairway to the loft,” Dick said. “This was mainly for convenience purposes for storage.”

Willemsen began restoring barns and building new ones several years ago and the Breeds barn will be about the 30^th restoration project that his company has completed. Although he began his business by advertising heavily, the advertising is done mainly be word of mouth now which is clearly understood when a person is able to view his scrapbook of jobs or a restored job while taking a Sunday Drive.

For more information on any of Barn Builders’ restoration projects or new barns, you may contact the company at 866-572-9910 or visit their web site at www.barn-builders.com.