South Room
This room was an interesting area and as I work on this barn I try and figure out the reasoning behind its layout. As you can see in the first photo it was in rough shape. It had a double wall on all the exterior sides but again no insulation so why the second wall? When I pulled the inner wall down and cleaned it out I filled 2 garbage bags with old mouse nesting materials and wasp nests that were between them. Over the years it rotted out the exterior siding but the main support beams were still rock hard fortunately. Photo 1 is taken from inside this room in its original state.

What a job it was pulling the nails out of the beams. Photo (2) shows half of the inner wall removed. After everything was removed and the room was opened up to the original state, I tried to imagine it in the day and being functional. I also wonder if they poured the floor when the barn was just framed or was this room and this floor an after thought?

I asked an old timer what he thought about this room and he said that it was most likely either a birthing room or a milking room, or both for cows. 
I do know that this room had cows in it because the floor and the walls stillhad dried out cow dung that I had to clean out so alot of what he said made sense. The platforms on the floor he said were most likely added for the cows to lay on during birthing.

The entire floor in this room is cement (3) and seperated into 2 smaller sloped areas with drainage of animal waste. In the center is a cement barrier that has 4 steel rings imbedded in it and he said that is where they would hook up the cows to keep them in place while milking them.

Well none of this will do me any good with my plans so I am going to build a floor over it to open up the lower floor of the barn. Part of me hates to cover it but its out with the old and in with the new.

When the new siding went up all that had to be replaced was a couple of cross braces for nailers. (4) I thought it was a nice touch staining the new wood so it blends in better with the old.

This is the wall (5) that seperated the shop area I built and this room. It served no purpose to me and it was not supporting the lofts at all so I removed it to open up the lower floor and you can see now that I have plenty of room to expand my workshop. (6)
(2)
(3)
(1)
(4)
(5)
(6)
This door leads out to the rear of the barn and the look was driving me nuts so I used some of the pine siding cut offs I had hanging around and filled in the centers and stained it. I think it looks great now and it is much sturdier and air tight now too.

Click on the picture to see how it looks now, much better I say !