Shelby woman takes castoffs, including old grain bin, to create country dream

Sherry Wheatley plans to make her property, The Olde Grainery, available to the public

Photos by Ginny Kropf: Sherry Wheatley stands in front of the grain bin she had converted into living space at her home on West Shelby Road, a project which caught the attention of Country Sampler magazine. She will be featured in an upcoming issue.

WEST SHELBY – Four years ago, Sherry Wheatley saw a picture on Pinterest of a girl who had turned a grain bin into a farmhouse.

“My heart started racing,” Wheatley said. “I thought that would be so cool to do that.”

Sherry had a three-story barn which was falling down, she said. And her sister Linda was married into the Kirby family from Albion and Brockport, where they had grain bins. If the barn was demolished, a grain bin would fit there perfectly.

The back deck of Sherry Wheatley’s grain bin overlooks her fields, where an assortment of animals graze. Part of her new barn is visible, where more antiques await her next project. The table, set with antique china, was made with lumber from the old barn that was torn down. An old bucket on the table doubles as a vase for flowers.

When Jack and Sherry Wheatley bought their c. 1840 home on West Shelby Road 40 years ago, she admits it should have been torn down.

But, being a couple who loves anything old or country, they began fixing it up, with help from Jack’s dad Dave.

 “It took us 25 years to get it where we wanted it,” she said.

Today it is an antique lovers’ paradise.

Sherry has always loved antiques and never wants to see anything thrown away. She can find a new life for almost everything.

“I go to antique sales, flea markets and garage sales and buy things that I have no idea what I’m going to do with them,” she said. “I put them in my ‘stash’ and when I’m ready to work on a project, I go to my stash and pull something out.”

Transforming a grain bin into living space would be her next – and most ambitious – project.

“I had a vision I wanted a welcoming, country, cowboy kind of look,” she said.

The first thing was to contact Ron Oleksy, her neighbor and third-generation carpenter. With her help, they tore the barn down, saving every beam and scrap of lumber.

Then she contacted the Amish community about putting up the grain bin which had to be dismantled at the Kirby farm and reconstructed at Sherry’s house.

“It took a lot of figuring how to deal with a round structure,” she said. “They had to think outside the box.”

At the end of March, Mennonite Joel Horst from Lyndonville was hired to dismantle the grain bin at Kirby’s, move it to Sherry’s house and put it back together.

“He had never done anything like that before, but he tackled it,” Sherry said. “He also built decks on the back and front.”

Newfane carpenter Jay Hughes had the job of making a table out of the barn wood. That sits on the back deck, with accent tables and stuffed chairs. Rabbit chairs at the table were purchased from a closed restaurant in Rochester. Hughes is also building a campfire pit in the yard west of the grain bin.

The front deck is furnished with antiques Sherry pulled out of her stash. Corbels from a Masonic lodge which burned in Ellicottville accent the corners. Horst was able to make a light from an old chicken feeder Sherry pulled from her stash.

“Now it has a story,” she said.

“I never look at anything and say, ‘Tear it down,’” Sherry said. “I look at it and say, ‘What can I do with it.’ I never buy anything new.”

Sherry Wheatley’s home is entirely furnished with antiques and primitives. This is a view of the kitchen/dining area of the 1840 house.

A well pulley with a bucket now sees new life as a flower pot. While visiting Norm Mundion she spotted a pile of “junk,” on which there was some metal tubing. He told her that was from the frame of a trampoline. She needed a railing for the steps down to the basement of her grain bin, and they fit the area perfectly. That is now her antique shop, called the Olde Grainery. She’d like to make a business out of it.

An antique truck with assorted rusted parts has become a lawn ornament at Sherry Wheatley’s home near West Shelby.

Mundion also contacted her about an outhouse at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery on Salt Works Road, which was rotting to pieces and covered with moss. The cemetery wanted to get rid of it, so she bought it for $1, then spent $1,500 having it rebuilt.

She admits people’s tastes change.

“When I was first married, I was in to modern, now it’s primitive,” she said.

Sherry loves to sit in her grain bin, listen to soft music and cry happy tears.

“I can’t believe it’s mine,” she said.

Her accomplishment is bittersweet, as Jack lost his battle with kidney failure in September 2022. He had Lupus and had been on dialysis for nearly a decade, waiting for a kidney donor.

“Jack was my best friend and soul mate, but I know he’s in a better place now, and I’m happy for him,” Sherry said. “I’m sure he’s looking down, proud I pulled it off.”

A few months ago Sherry sent pictures of her home and grain bin to Country Sampler magazine. They actually contacted her and spent Sunday and Monday a week ago at her home, taking pictures for a six-page feature in their spring 2025 issue.

Sherry is planning to offer her grain bin and grounds to rent for parties, showers or small weddings. She also hopes to have an open house for the public very soon, to share her labor of love.

She not only loves antiques, but has a soft spot for animals. She has two donkeys, a quarterhorse, three sheep, three goats, two pot-bellied pigs, four chickens and two rescue dogs from a puppy mill. She plans to get two llamas from Michelle Batt soon, so she can spin their fiber.

A longtime lover of anything antique, primitive or country, Sherry Wheatley has transformed her entire property with everything “old and primitive.” Here, she stands next to a reconstructed three-holer outhouse from the early 1900s she got from Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, where it was falling down and going to be demolished.