How to Make a Barn a Home

Why a barn and not a house? Easy. By building a barn home or converting a barn to become your main residence, you have essentially created an heirloom quality, custom home that will be cherished for generations to come. Barns have a unique style and special quality about them. Barns make a strong statement about the homeowners and families living in them. Timber frame barns are especially striking for their quality workmanship and enduring construction.

Building Your Barn Home: The Options Ahead

Barns can be built from scratch or converted from an existing barn used to store equipment or livestock into space that includes living areas, indoor plumbing, insulation, heating and energy systems. If you convert an existing barn into a house, special expertise and plans may be needed. A timber frame forms the core of your barn home, and its elegant, classic structure is ideal for use as a full-time, family abode. With an existing barn, you know what you have and experts can help you figure out how to optimize your future living space.

If you build from scratch, you can find great barn living plans online, including Barn Plans, Uncle Howards and Yankee Barns websites. The advantage of building your barn home from scratch is that you can gain efficiencies from off-the-shelf designs and not having to deal with converting an old structure to today's modern standards. There are few surprises when you custom build your barn home. In addition, you can usually select from a wide variety of designs, models, sizes and construction material to suit every taste and budget. The downside of building from scratch is that you lose the classic look, style and beams that usually come along with an existing barn conversion. But, you might be able to attain some of these features by adding reclaimed wood and other materials to your design plan.

Building Your Barn Home: Classic and Contemporary Styles

When building your barn home from scratch, there are a wide variety of designs and styling from which to choose. Among them, Country Style barn home, Great Plains Western style barn home, Gambrel Roofed barn home, Pioneer Western Style barn home, among many others. In Maine, barn homes feature distinctly New England styling combined with post and beam timber frames. In Pennsylvania, you may find Amish-inspired oak framing or converted barns from the Revolutionary War period. On the coast, you may find Hay Barns converted into stylish homes, as one homeowner described in a recent article in This Old House. Northwest timber is abundant for barn homes in Oregon and Washington. One barn-raising firm in Sonoma's wine country specializes in antique, timber frame barn homes and helps energy-conscious homeowners take advantage of environmental factors and green design.

Building Your Barn Home: Do Your Homework

Building a barn home from scratch or converting an old barn into a primary residence has its perils. So, it's important to do your research before signing onto a project or contractor. This is especially important as more and more contractors offer green options and solutions, including heating, air conditioning, lighting, building materials, among others. You'll especially want to pay attention to the type of wood available, custom vs. precut wood and frames, high wind and snow load options, siding options, foundation types, in-house design, CAD drafting, kits and custom design options, among others. Building a barn home is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for folks who can't fully appreciate the beauty of wooden construction and natural materials. Building a barn home or converting an old barn involves a variety of decision points and, therefore, invites people who enjoy the process home of design and construction.

Want to learn more about barn homes or converting old barns into homes? Check out these and other resources on how you can raise a barn with all the bells and whistles today.

Barn Plans
www.barnplans.com/barnhouse.html

Barn Kits
www.unclehowards.com

Yankee Barns
www.yankeebarns.com

How To Take One Old Barn and Call It Home
By Max Alexander in This Old House magazine

Timber Frame Design has Timeless Appeal
By Steve Ruszkai, Jr., AIA, LEED AP