Tag Archives: curb appeal

Must Do’s for a Worry Free Barndominium

My Facebook friend RICK in MALDEN messaged me:

“I have never built a building like this. I have seen many bad experiences with concrete, poor quality metal work and many more issues. I would just like to know if there is a list of things to make sure I get a quality home. I saw the other day you said osb under the roof metal could help with condensation issues. I’m also worried about gaps where the metal meets together. I don’t want to just shoot spray insulation and call it good. You have said that is not the way to do it. I guess I’m looking for something to tell me the quality method for the most common mistakes people or contractors make. I am using a contractor because I don’t have the skill or experience to DIY. I also don’t want to rely on the contractor to tell me the right way. If I had it my way I’d have you do it. You are the most knowledgeable and in-depth person I have found on the internet about the Barndo building subject.”

Thank you for all of your kind words. 

There are days when I think what a joy it would be to be out building. I do truly love to build, smells of earth from freshly dug holes, lumber being taken out of a wrapped unit, sawdust – all of these give me warm, fuzzy nostalgic feelings.

I have kept myself in great physical condition and at 63 years-old I could certainly be out building. And I do know there are folks who would gladly pay my rate to have me do their construction. However this would allow me to properly assist only one client at a time. What I do now allows me to help thousands of people every year to get better buildings.

Enough of me waxing poetic – let’s get down to business!

(Side note – much of this advice is expounded upon in detail in previously written articles. Please visit www.HansenPoleBuildings.com, navigate to SEARCH at upper right corner, click on it, type in a word or phrase and ENTER)

Plan tips – consider these factors:

Direction of access (you don’t want to have to drive around your house to get to garage doors).

‘Curb appeal’ – what will people see as they drive up?

Any views? If so, take advantage of them.

North-south alignment – place no or few windows on north wall, lots on south wall.

Overhang on south wall to shade windows from mid-day summer sun If your AC bill is far greater than your heating bill, reverse this and omit or minimize north overhangs.

Slope of site.

Work from inside out – do not try to fit what you need within a pre-ordained box just because someone said using a “standard” size might be cheaper. Differences in dimensions from “standard” are pennies per square foot, not dollars.

Put up the largest building you can economically justify and fit on your property.

Plan for accessibility – 4′ or wider hallways and stairs, an ADA bathroom with a roll in shower. 3′ wide interior doors.

Walk-in (roll-in) closets for bedrooms, even secondary ones.

Consider if you truly want to live on a concrete floor. Crawl spaces are roughly the same investment.

Kitchen – two dishwashers, two microwaves, two ovens, trash compactor. Separate side-by-side refrigerator and freezer units. A good sized pantry.

9′ or 10′ finished ceilings in living areas.

Onto building construction itself….

Probably most important (and most often neglected) is proper site prep.

Make sure there is a vapor barrier under any slab-on-grade (and use 10-15 mil).

For slab-on-grade at least have pex-al-pex tubes run.

Personally I like flash & batt for walls – two inches of closed cell spray foam ideally with BIBs insulation to fill balance of insulation cavity. In this circumstance, you do not want a WRB, however you do want to order inside closures for top and bottom of every wall panel.

Order raised heel trusses so you can blow in fiberglass insulation to full depth from wall-to-wall.

For condensation control – use steel panels with Integral Condensation Control.

Vent sidewall overhangs and ridge.

Use all 5/8″ Type X sheetrock.

Make sure you and your contractor have a written agreement covering everything – it keeps feelings from being hurt and clearly outlines expectations. I will have a series of articles soon outlining some important inclusions for agreements, please watch for them.

What Hansen Pole Buildings Offers for Prospective Barndominium Owners

What Hansen Pole Buildings Offers for Prospective Barndominium Owners

If you are considering building a barndominium or shouse (shop/house), whether DIY or with a contractor’s involvement, there is one very important question to ask:

“Do you personally live in a barndominium?”

If you do not receive a resounding, “YES” for an answer, you may want to rethink your choice.

My lovely bride and I have lived in our Hansen Pole Building along South Dakota’s Lake Traverse for 15 years now. This being my third personal barndominium, dating back some thirty years, I can speak with experience few others can.

Hansen VisionAt Hansen Pole Buildings, we are literally “All About the Building” and we strive to provide “The Ultimate Post Frame Building Experience™”. Every single one of our fully engineered post frame buildings is custom designed to best fit our client’s wants and needs. Rarely will we be least expensive, however we will always provide a best value solution.



This process ideally begins in infancy stages, with a determination of fiscal reality – highly tempered by individual tastes and how much effort one is willing or able to put into their new home. Those willing to be their own General Contractors can plan upon saving roughly 25% over hiring a builder to turn key and 50% for DIYing as much as possible. We have found any physically capable person, who is willing to read step-by-step directions in English can successfully erect their own beautiful building, and many do. We have even had septuagenarian couples do their own construction!

Most often a DIY barndominium turns out with better results than one could ever hire done – because you truly care about how it turns out.

Once a budget has been established, it is time to ‘find the dirt’. Without knowing where your barndominium will be located, it is impossible and impractical to determine how your new home should be planned. Important aspects such as direction of access, curb appeal and views play into a well thought out design.  Directional orientation is important, with heat loss or gain determined by location and number of windows, as well as design of shading from overhangs. Slope of site determines needs for significant grade work or placing upon a full or partial basement or crawl space.

Moving closer to actuality we provide direction and encouragement in determining your family’s needed spaces, sizes and orientation to each other. Work from your home’s inside rather than trying to fit what your needs are into some pre-ordained space. With this information in hand, we offer a potentially free, professional floor plan and building elevation service to take all of your ideas, wants and needs and actually craft a floor plan best melding them with realities of construction.

Whether you have utilized our plan service, or have a plan of your own, your Hansen Pole Buildings’ Designer will work directly with you to make recommendations to provide a home most practical for you. You have total choice over a virtually unlimited number of aspects. Your being directly involved eliminates builders taking advantage of you in order to pad their bottom line. Hansen Pole Buildings does have a unique Instant Pricing™ system, allowing your Building Designer to make changes and have a near instantaneous answer as to what your investment will be as various dimensional and feature changes are contemplated.

We are very conscious about design for energy efficiency. Power is unlikely to ever become less expensive, so getting at or as close as possible to a net zero design is paramount.

Need financing for your new barndominium? We work with several lenders who actually understand post frame barndominiums and can assist with this phase.

After your building order has been placed, it moves from your Building Designer’s desk to our design team. Before going to one of our skilled draftspeople every building comes across my desk for personal review – mostly in an aspect of what will or will not work structurally, Building Code compliance and how to increase building efficiency without compromising functionality.

Once your structural building plans are completed, you get to review them for accuracy prior to our independent Registered Professional Engineer going over every member and connection as a final assurance of structural soundness. Only after all of these steps have been completed are your engineer sealed plans, along with verifying structural calculations, sent to you to acquire necessary building permits.

Even if your jurisdiction does not require building permits, structural plan reviews or do inspections, having engineer sealed plans is your assurance of structural adequacy. There are insurance companies who give discounts to those who build fully engineered homes, so ask your agent for yours.

You have access through our online portal to follow your building’s process, reschedule build dates, report any damaged or missing materials, as well as requesting unlimited technical support from those who have actually built post frame buildings.

Even after your barndominum is complete and you have sent us digital photos of your beautiful new home, our commitment to you does not end. Hansen Pole Buildings provides a Limited Lifetime Structural warranty covering your home and regardless of how many years you have had your building, should you have questions or concerns, we are available to assist.

How to Avoid Your Barndominium Being Kicked to the Curb

How to Avoid Your Barndominium Being Kicked to the Curb

Welcome back from last Thursday!

When it comes to resale value, you want your barndominium’s curb appeal to add to value, not kick you to the curb.

There are things you can do during design and build phases to improve appeal and good news is, many of them are relatively inexpensive.

Free – color choices. Try to avoid trendy or garish color combinations, as well as colors prone to rapid fading (reds are worst). For most steel siding and roofing colors, an upgrade to Kynar paint will keep colors looking close to new and minimize chalking for decades. Faded steel makes your barndominium look years older than its true age.
Utilize wainscot panels to break up walls (especially tall ones). If a wainscot panel gets damaged it can easily be replaced.

Roof slopes can dramatically improve curb appeal. Rather than a warehouse like a near flat roof, use 4/12 or greater roof slopes to increase interest.

Overhangs not only provide protection to your barndominium’s siding and shield southern exposed windows from extreme summer rays, but also take away industrial and boxy looks. Functionally they provide a great source of air intake for venting interior enclosed attic spaces.

Driveways and walkways oriented to provide obvious pathways to your main doorway are always good for favorable impressions. Protect your barndominium’s front door by either a recessed entry, or having an extended reverse gable roof to provide shelter for those who are awaiting an invitation into your home.

Avoid building a big box. Garage/shop areas can be shifted in relationship to living areas, breaking up what would otherwise appear to be a long, straight wall. Consider creating an “L” in living spaces. With a single level home and a tall shop space, turn shop roofs 90 degrees to run roofline opposite house roof.

Garage door openings with 45 degree ‘dogears’ in upper corners cost little and add lots. Utilize raised panel residential overhead doors, rather than commercial doors.

Porches have become popular barndominium features. To avoid them appearing dark (as well as blocking lines of sight), utilize trusses spanning across not only living areas, but also out across your porch. Consider wrap around porches to increase function as well as curb appeal.

It is well worth investing in services of a design professional. Someone who can take all of your ideas, those wants and needs and actually craft a floor plan and elevations to best melding them with the realities of construction and an attractive curb appeal.

Hansen Pole Buildings has just this service available and it can be done absolutely for free! Read all the details here and we look forward to continuing to walk with you in your journey to a beautiful new home: http://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/post-frame-floor-plans/?fbclid=IwAR2ta5IFSxrltv5eAyBVmg-JUsoPfy9hbWtP86svOTPfG1q5pGmfhA7yd5Q

Why Curb Appeal is Crucial for Your New Barndominium

I have had people try to convince me curb appeal for their new barndominium is not important. Their reason has ranged from, “I am never going to sell this house” to “It is far into a forest no one will ever see it”.
A shocking reality – some day, someone will be selling your barndominium.
Here is a case in point. My great grandparents bought my family home outside of Spokane, Washington in 1937 from its original owners who had it built for them in 1909. Nine years later, they sold it to their son and my grandfather passed it along to me in 1990. It has been in our family for 83 years.
Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this home to not be in our family. However my lovely bride Judy was in a tragic motorcycle accident nearly five years ago and her being a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair did not match up well with a hillside home full of stairs. My three biological children, who grew up in this home, are scattered to the wind in Tennessee, Oregon and Massachusetts and are either buying homes of their own, or are settled into life at their present locales.

So, we are selling.

We’ve all had the experience of driving or walking down a street and seeing a house so adorable, we have to stop, stare, and imagine what it would be like to live there. Architecturally and aesthetically it looks warm, inviting, and happy just to exist.
Meanwhile, next door is a home looking like a big box, no overhangs, very flat roof, everything making it look… well, not quite so nice, rather like a warehouse. Imagine if those two homes were for sale — even if this second one were bigger, do you think a buyer would jump as readily to make a high offer on it as he would the first?

Besides me learning I did not want to golf, architecture school did teach me you have only one chance to make a good first impression.

First impressions last, and nowhere is this more evident than in real estate. If you are listing your barndominium, the initial impression it makes on a potential buyer can be the difference between a speedy sale and a house languishing without offers for several months.

Curb appeal describes a potential buyer’s feeling of a home as he or she approaches it, based on how it looks from outside. In recent years, this initial impression has extended beyond just physical and into a realm of virtual reality. How a home looks online can also greatly influence a buyer’s interest — in fact, in today’s highly competitive market, this is where curb appeal really begins.

 

Buying a home is an emotional experience. It is, therefore, critically important a seller sets a proper stage in generating a positive emotional response from a buyer. Whether a buyer sees a property online or physically pulls up to it, they’re either connecting or not connecting with this property in those first moments. How it looks from the outside brings about expectations of what the inside looks like once they enter.

Buyers and agents are looking at the big picture when viewing a home, but this doesn’t mean they are immune to little details. Everything is taken into consideration from the moment they see your house, including garage/shop, front door, and architectural details.

If you’ve already set a good impression with your barndominium’s exterior, it will allow for a more hopeful expectation of what a buyer will see inside. However, if you set a poor example, any positive emotional experience you’re looking for becomes an uphill battle. No matter how beautiful your interior is, a potential buyer’s mindset has been influenced before they’ve even stepped in your front door.

You can’t negotiate with a buyer if you can’t get them to your house, and if you don’t present your property online in a way compelling someone to want to hop in their car and see it firsthand, there won’t be a sale.

In most cases a wife or female human significant other is going to be the decision maker when it comes to buying your property. Many guys are like me – I don’t care if it is painted pink outside, as long as it has a great shop for me to tinker. Most wives have a lesser interest in a barndominium appearing to be all garage or looking like a warehouse.

Tune in next Tuesday for ideas on how to create attractive curb appeal.