Features: O gauge-compatible, wood construction, fully assembled and decorated, exterior lights. Order online now at www.menards.com, or visit your local Menards closer to Christmas.
You may recall last year Menards launched what appears destined to become a series of pre-assembled, wood buildings with the Camaraderie Bar & Grill. It was a pleasing structure that could have fit into a rural town setting or in an older, perhaps “other side of the tracks” neighborhood.
It was well executed and very attractively priced for a wood structure.
This year the entry is the Classic Dairy Barn. This is a sight familiar to anyone who travels the back roads of America, from Georgia to the Dakotas, or wherever dairy cattle were or are raised. We aren’t talking giant industrial dairy farm level here, but a home to maybe a dozen cows, all with names, that little Billy milks before he walks to school.
We were delighted to receive a factory pre-production sample from Menards, but the store’s representative told us this sample is essentially identical to what can be expected from the production models. Opening the box
Arriving in clear plastic clamshell packaging, there isn’t much mystery to the opening-the-box stuff. The model has the look of a craftsman-level kit that someone has been kind enough to assemble for you – and the clear packaging means you can see the quality before you plunk down your ducats.
Gently removing the barn from the packaging, I lifted it up and was pleased to discover that there was some substance to the base – if you had to lift it with one hand, the relatively thin wood structure wouldn’t be in danger of collapsing (or the base breaking). Overall, the footprint is roughly 7½ inches wide by 14 inches long.
My first impression was favorable – it looks like an older barn, well-used but far from decrepit.
The paint is a little thin here, and moss is growing on the roof over there. The tin roof is a bit rusted, and the paid advertising on the side is faded but still legible.
You get the feeling this barn has seen a lot of cows mosey through its doors.
Heck, you almost see some 1:48 scale Little Rascals getting ready to “put on a show” inside the barn.
The front of the barn has a door, just barely open, and suggesting that it slides to open or close. There are two windows that bracket the door.
There is a German Shepherd (long tongue hanging out) watching an O gauge cow approach the barn door.
Above the ground-level door is a two-door access to the hayloft.
There is simulated grass on the base. It is very nice and suggests new grass growth as well as clumps of grass.
On the upper level, just beneath the roof and to the left of the loft door, you’ll find an LED.
The roof simulates a corrugated metal roof that has seen better days. Colors range from silver to black, with spots of rust at random. There is a bit of moss growing around the roof as well.
The right side of the barn (I think of it as the Mail Pouch Tobacco-side, even though the right side of the roof says “Menards, U.S. 12, Eau Claire, WI) has five windows. Again, the paint is deliberately thin in spots to suggest rain water running down the sides of the structure over a period of years, washing out the paint color as it drained.
The back, or silo side, is pretty impressive. The left portion has an LED beneath the roof and an access door.
The base of the silo has what looks like bricks running around the bottom. The silo appears to be made out of long strips of wood – but the wire hoop reinforcements around it hint at it being concretebrick construction.
A ladder runs from ground level to the roof. The top itself is made from pizza-slice style wood. An interesting detail is the wood framework that connects the back of the barn to the silo, presumably to allow the farmer all-weather access to the corn or grain that he will feed the cattle during the winter months! This is a nice design element that could have been easily omitted.
The ground is covered with the same grass as the front, and three O gauge cows are chilling around the silo.
The left side has signage for Wisconsin cheese-maker Shullsburg Cheese (www.schullsburgcheesestore.com) and nationally known Burpee Seeds (www.burpee.com). As with the Menards signage, they do not look brand new, but look a bit weathered after many year in the sun.
At the base of the barn, you’ll find the receptical for the power adapter (required for light, but not included) for the exterior lights, and the on off switch.
Thumbs up or down?
You can see this barn just about anywhere in North America, and it presses all the right nostalgia buttons.
While the scale size may be small for a real dairy barn, you don’t need to have a layout as large as one funded by Nelson Rockefeller for the Classic Dairy Barn to look right at home. If you have an O gauge layout with a smallish space for an agricultural scene, you have room for this model.
I give this structure a definite thumbs up. The fact that the building is assembled, decorated, and even weathered for a price closer to what you might pay for an unassembled kit makes the deal better!
So three cheers for Menards for going beyond its core market to offer some unique and affordable products for the O gauge world.
I have this barn and it is first rate. Made of wood with lots of detail. I highly recommend it.