JUNE 15 UPDATE: Another converted granary

On Sunday afternoon, a group of us went from one farm where a granary was converted into a house to another farm where a granary had been converted into an art museum.

The Granary Rural Cultural Center was started in 1993, after a local farmer, John Sieh, donated the land and the granary from his family farm for the project. The building was built in 1928. The original granary serves as gallery space, and it has been added on to to provide more display space and a gift shop. A local town hall was also moved to the property, which serves as a place for art classes and other gatherings. The grounds have been designed by local landscape architecture students and feature sculptures made by local artists. A new sculpture was dedicated on Sunday, which is why we went there then. (That, and the free hamburger lunch.)

I had been to the Granary before, but I thought it might be fun to go there again with the new eyes I have now after we've started our own granary project. I noticed some similarities, but also some differences -- basically, they left a good deal more of the character of the granary intact, which suits an art gallery but wouldn't necessarily work for a place you want to live in.

I also noticed that the original building is smaller than ours -- perhaps a reflection of the increase in grain yields between 1928 and 1950, when the two buildings were built.

Here's a view down the central alleyway of what was the old granary. Notice that part of the floor was left in the original concrete, and it looks to me like a number of the original bin walls were left intact.


Here's a view looking toward the old part of the granary, taken from the added-on gallery space. (Those stairs, by the way, are definitely not made for children. I might have amended the design.)

Some of the original bin boards can be seen above the gallery walls.


This granary did have an elevator. Grain was dumped into this grate into the floor, then hauled up higher to be dumped into the appropriate bins. (I'm not all that up on this technology, so if someone wants to comment and correct me, feel free.) The grate is covered with plexiglass so museum visitors can walk safely across.
Part of the elevator system was left in the art gallery. (We took out our grain chute -- that much authenticity isn't necessary for our house, and anyway, it was in the way of the chimney for our new wood stove.)

We had this same sign up in our granary. We'll put it back up in some fashion when we get to decorating. I'm not sure I can explain what the ever-normal granary is, but if you're curious, I found this link, which gives the basics.


While we were at the Granary event, Walt was putting another hole in the roof! There are now two skylights in place. Two more to go!

If you have a sharp eye, you might be thinking we didn't put the skylights in the right place, as they are not quite equidistant from the edges. Well, putting in a skylight is much easier if you can put it between rafters (and it seems to me the roof will stay more structurally sound that way), and the way the rafters fell meant that it had to go to one side or another of where exactly we wanted it to be. Ah, well, we already knew we'd have a home with character. And the house won't look quite balanced anyway, since we are putting an addition onto the east side.

Dave was working on detail work on the windows -- removing the extra length on the shims and filling the gaps with insulating foam.

Paavo took the Sunday off, attending the Granary event with us on what would be his last day here in South Dakota. We are so very appreciative of him traveling across an ocean to spend a month working with us! Paljon kiitoksia!