The January issue of the Iowa Soybean Review features an old barn with a new purpose.

Mark and Pam Lage live on a farm near Sheffield, Iowa, that his great-grandfather, John Heidkross, bought in 1904. Mark is a member of ISA’s On-Farm Network® Advisory Committee, participating in strip trials and, more specifically, the OFN’s current nutrient benchmark study.

In 1999, when Mark’s grandparents moved to town, Mark and Pam remodeled the 1912 farmhouse and also decided to remodel the grand old barn, built in 1915, rather than build a new structure for their computer business.

“It would have cost less to build a new Morton building,” Mark says.

It also would have taken less work, but they wouldn’t have had as much room….and they certainly wouldn’t have the same atmosphere!

Starting at the roof of the haymow, they powerwashed all the wood and treated all the wood on the ground floor, including posts, beams and ceiling boards, with deck stain. The old cement barn floor was broken up and removed and a new cement floor poured.

The Lages redesigned the interior of the barn, working with the existing 16-foot sections. The west part, where calves or sows had been housed, became Mark’s garage. The next section, that had once held milk cows and later was a farrowing area, became a display/meeting room for the computer business, which is no longer in operation since the advent of inexpensive, easily programmed laptops. Through the years, the large room has also housed graduation receptions, conferences, quilting retreats, family gatherings and more. Currently, it is the living room for the Lages’ older son Ryan, who has made the barn his residence while working at his John Deere Mechanics internship for the course he is taking at Northeast Iowa Community College in Calmar.

In the next 16-foot section, the former milk room is now Mark’s office. There’s also a kitchen, equipped with cabinets taken out of the house when it was remodeled, as well as appliances and a kitchen table.

“This is especially great during fieldwork or calving seasons,” Mark says. “All of us guys can stop off here for a rest and a bite to eat without having to go to the house.”

In the next section to the east, there’s a restroom and Mark’s dad, John, has an office. The room Pam used as an office has been converted to a bedroom for Ryan and, at the back of the barn, the “tech room” where computers were formerly assembled, is a laundry room.

Stairs to the haymow reveal a haven for youngsters. Besides basketball hoops centered on each end, there are pool tables, ping-pong tables, foosball and more, along the sides. It’s been a great spot for Ryan and younger brother, Jacob, to entertain friends, including youth group events.

Describing the barn’s latest metamorphosis from business center to living quarters, Mark says, “It was time to make a change anyway.” Asked what else might be in the barn’s future, he grins and says, “Who knows? I think it would make a great house, with one end of the haymow converted to a master suite.”  But he’s not sure Pam will be ready to move out there from the house anytime soon.