Room In A Barndominium
I read plenty of chatter in Facebook barndominium groups where people want to see other’s floor plans. In my humble opinion – this is a mistake. Building your own barndominium, shouse (shop/house) or post frame home from scratch gives you probably a once in a lifetime opportunity to craft a home specifically to fit your needs.
Home sizes can be split up into three groups – small (under 2000 square feet), medium (2000-2999 square feet) and large (over 3000 square feet). In discussions about possible rooms and sizes average square footage (sft) for each size will be indicated.
Entry Foyer (65/89/138 sft)
Most homes have some sort of space inside the front door where coats and boots are removed, etc. Coat closet should be in this area as well.
Our shouse in South Dakota has a tiled floor in this area located where top of stairs and elevator are. Ours is on small end of spectrum, at well below average. My own personal favorite was in my Willamette Valley home where I created an ‘air lock’ entry – front door opening into an area where a nearly full glass door divided it from living spaces. This design was very practical for maintaining interior temperatures.
Kitchen (193/275/423)
Face it, we all have to eat. This is going to be your ideal dream home, so kitchen space is not a place to scrimp. Ours is most certainly beyond large average.
In our shouse’s case, I personally enjoy to cook, my bride to bake. Our kitchen tends to also become a social place where company congregates as meals are organized and prepared. Things I feel we really did right in ours include:
4’ x 8’ center island. We designed it with a two foot bank of cabinets on one side, a two foot space for a chair from each side (and grandkids can crawl through) and four feet of cabinets on other side. This chair space worked out to be ideal for my wife’s powered wheelchair after she became a paraplegic.
Separate side-by-side refrigerator and freezer units. There is seemingly never enough space inside a standard combined unit. We also raised ours a foot above floor level so we didn’t have to stand on our heads to see what was at the bottom.
If one is good, two are better. This applied to our ovens, where one is stacked above another. This became even more important after my wife’s accident, as she can easily reach the lower oven. We also have two dishwashers – one of my pet peeves is fixing a meal for a large group and having dirty dishes remaining on counters and sinks. Two dishwashers solved this. We also raised each of them a foot off the floor and it has made loading and unloading so much easier! Our other duo is his and hers microwaves. Even though it is just the two of us here, it is amazing how often we have both of these in use at the same time.
We have large spaces (four feet) between island and surrounding kitchen counters.
Long eating bar (easily seats five on bar stools) – at the same height as the top of raised dishwashers, with sink and range on the other side and lower. With a passle of grandchildren, this makes serving and cleanup a breeze.
One thing I did miss (and I have had before) is a trash compactor.
Walk-In Kitchen Pantry (17/31/51)
Originally we did not have one in our shouse. After my bride’s accident, we ended up adding a full sized elevator, requiring a mechanical room. The space at living level, above mechanical room, became our pantry. Even with our kitchen having side-by-side refrigerator and freezer units, there just was never enough room, especially around Winter Holidays. Our pantry has both a refrigerator with a top freezer and an upright freezer. Refrigerator is a handy spot for 12 packs of soda and adult beverages, as well as when guests bring refrigerated items over for a get together.
We also used heavy duty shelf brackets and have two foot deep shelves all up one wall and above cooling units.
Come back tomorrow for more on designing your new barndominium.
For starters, m
Avoid a site within a flood zone, unless you are prepared to invest extra to build above flood levels. Same goes for hurricane prone areas.
Finding skilled craftsman who are willing to travel to our location ranged from difficult to impossible. Few were interested in a jaunt of 60 miles from Watertown or 100 miles from Fargo. Those who would travel charged extra to compensate for driving time and distance. Transporting building materials and paying for delivery costs more than building near a major city.
Barndominiums, shouses and post frame homes all fit into a similar category to me. This category heading would be titled, “Living in a Post Frame Building”, although other construction types may be used, post frame is going to give most bang for your investment.
This is having your barndominium built (turn key), not for owner-builders.
And my engineered post frame building kit package includes engineering, saving $6,400.
It is also a really hard question to answer. You can probably guess standard cabinets and custom cabinets come with a very big price difference. This is merely one example of a myriad of differences between every single barndominium. 
This building is entirely clearspan – no interior columns to have to work around. Second floor has a 10 foot wide step-down by four feet. This area has its own vaulted ceiling at a 7/12 slope and is used for exercise equipment. With a series of nine windows overlooking a beautiful lake, it takes one’s mind off the agonies of treadmilling and lifting weights.
When we built our gambrel roof style barndominium 15 years ago we were in a position financially where we could have done most anything we wanted to. Our property was over two acres in size, so available space was not a determining factor. After having lived in it every day for going on four years, I have realized there are some things I would have done differently. For sake of brevity, I will only discuss main clearspan portions of our barndominium (it has 18 foot width sidesheds).
We provide custom designed engineered post frame building kit packages. As we are wood framing, we provide no metal studs. We can supply Weather Resistant Barriers and Reflective Radiant Barriers as well as batt insulation. We typically provide only structural portions of buildings – exterior shell, any raised floors (for crawl spaces, second or third floors or lofts) but can provide interior wall framing, if desired. We can work from any client supplied floor plans, elevation drawings or sketches. We do not have ‘stock’ plans, as every client’s needs are different. We expect our clients to layout their own interior rooms, to best fit with those needs and lifestyle.
When you look at a barn, what do you see? A space for hay or machinery storage? Living quarters for livestock? If you’re like the increasing number of people in the market for a barndominium, you may see it as something completely different: a home.
Barndominiums can also be constructed relatively quickly and easily. Barndominium material kits are readily available, allowing the do-it-yourselfer to assemble their own home or bring in a contractor for a reasonable price. Once barndominium contractors have completed their project, the exterior maintenance requirements are minimal.
In terms of decorating a barndominium, the sky’s the limit. While pole buildings may naturally have a more simple look, many barndo owners customize their homes to have a more rustic appearance, using features such as wood beams, faux brick walls, and antique decorations. Of course, it’s just as easy to opt for a modern design, with open, airy spaces and wide glass doors and full-length windows. A common misconception is that barndominium pole buildlings must have metal sidings or a metal roof. That’s just not the case. A pole building can be designed and built with any roof or siding materials!
