All About Barns and Barn Conversions

Barns are historic structures that are often worth saving. Many people dream of building a new barn to use for a home, storage or even a studio for artistic activities. Other people would really love to renovate an existing barn. Renovating an existing barn to a barn home is not simple. Many of the times these structures are in a place where you will need to run plumbing and electricity to the building. If you are planning on undertaking this type of renovations, you need to be patient and plan carefully.

Preserving the History:

Preserving the history of an old structure is not only important to the building, but it will also be important to you. An old building will look great after the renovations are complete when you stay true to the original designs and architecture. You may even want to consider hiring someone to help you keep the historic value of the barn during the renovation process. Renovations of old barns can be tricky. If you are planning on renovating an old structure, then you will first need to get it in the right location. This may include moving the barn from one property to another. The next thing that you will want to do is to make sure that you preserve all the history of the building as you possible as you can. You will want to take a good hard look at what is already in building and see what you can keep. Old floors are great to save. Wood flooring can be salvaged and refurbished and then used again once the renovation is correct. Reusing what you can will keep the historic look as well as save you money.

Hire Help for the Renovations:

As you plan your renovations for your barn home, you will probably want to hire plenty of help. A professional contractor can help you not only preserve the architecture of the building as well as help you re-design the inside of the barn. After you have completed the work, you may want to think about hiring a decorator to give you the right look for your newly renovated barn home.

Getting Inspections:

As you complete your renovations, you will need to work with your city officials to make sure that everything you do stays within the building codes. You will need to hire an inspector and make sure that all of the work is done correctly as well. This is extremely important especially if the building will be used for living spaces. Making sure that the wiring and plumbing is done correctly will be essential.

Renovating a barn into a home can be a trying, yet very satisfying experience. You are taking a historic structure and turning into a building that can be put to good use. With a little patience and planning, your barn home will be enjoyed for years to come. Your barn home will look great once you have completed the renovations.

If you are looking to turn your barn into a home, there are a number of things that you need to consider. It can be a fairly large job, though many people prefer to keep a lot of the original features of the barn in their homes. You may also have to keep several features of the barn if you want to ensure that you can keep a physical record of the building once it is finished.

Now home barn renovations can be hard work. So it is often a good idea to look at various tips to see how you can save a lot of hard work. It also helps to look at tips to see if you can find a style that suits you. Often people have no idea how to renovate their barn and so by looking at different tips you should be able to get some inspiration to help you.

Some of the Best Barn Renovation Tips

If you want to get the place looking fantastic, the first thing that you should ideally look at when you step into the barn is the flooring. If the barn has been used for a number of activities then it is likely that it will be quite worn down. So the flooring may be the one thing that requires a lot of work. A common problem which can cause problems with the flooring is a damaged roof. If the barn has not been used that much, then the roof is likely to have suffered some damage. This means that if there is a leak, the rain could have come through and caused a lot of damage to the flooring. So you will need to sweep the floor and see exactly what damage has occurred before you can start any work on it.

Another extremely important factor you need to take into account with home barn renovations is the electrics and the mechanical systems. If the barn has electric then you should check to see if it still works. If there are any faulty electrics then you will need to have them fixed by a qualified electrician. If you do not fix the problem properly, it can lead to a fire. Many people have lost their barns due to a fire caused by an electrical fault. So it is always better to be safe rather than sorry.

Overall renovating your barn can be a lot of work but it is essential if you want to keep it safe and usable. If you follow these easy tips you should have no problem renovating the barn yourself. Generally it is mainly just a case of checking the flooring, the roof and the electrics. You may also wish to install replacement windows to update the barn.

There is a trend lately to find unique and affordable housing and many have turned to converting a barn into a home. In my area of East Tennessee, there are some fine examples of this including the one I converted.

It’s needless to say that there are many barns in various shapes and sizes all around. A vast majority are in bad shape. Please don’t make the mistake of buying one that is labeled a unique fixer upper opportunity. Don’t fool yourself. If a barn has gotten into the shape where the siding boards are starting to fall off, unless you’re buying it for parts, my suggestion is to leave it alone. By the time the boards start falling off the sides, there’s major flaws. The main trouble would probably be that the horizontal beams are rotting and the fasteners are turning loose.

The best candidate for remodeling would be one that was painted on the exterior walls and roof. This means that it was at least maintained to a certain degree by it’s owners over the years. If your barn has some age on it, it would probably be best to first find all the areas that have been effected by weather or urine from the livestock that was kept in that barn. Animal urine sometimes has a high acid content and anything that has been contaminated with it really needs to be removed from the structure.

Look especially in the loft areas where hay may have been stored close to the outside walls. Chances are there may have been some rain water that had soaked in through the hay bales. This is where you will find most of any rotting of the floor boards. Take a look at the underside of the roof. If you see pinholes and sunlight coming through, water can also seep in. You’ll either have to replace the tin roofing where you find these holes or dab the holes with a tar patch and then coat the roof with a fibered aluminum paint.

Inspect the interior walls and see what types of columns are used in your barn. 99% of all barns in the US are post and beam construction. If your posts are buried in the ground, check and see if there is any type of rotting. Older barns will probably not have pressure treated wood in their construction. If your barn is built with a wide open floor area, you are most certainly going to have to build masonry piers inside to support your floors and walls and also find a way to tie the existing walls into the new support system.

Check to see that the horizontal beams are not loose or if there is rotting between them and the columns. Look at the top plates for rot from water damage. If your columns are mounted on a rock or cinder block, check the bottoms of the columns for rotting.

Consult your local building inspector to make sure you can get the proper permits if needed. In my part of the country, building permits for remodeling are not required if you are in the county but your local codes may be different. It would be a shame to buy the barn only to find the powers that be will not grant the necessary permissions.

When I first began my project, all I had to work with was the old, empty barn. Being an old structure it was necessary to examine the entire building to make sure there wasn’t any type of structural flaws. Thank goodness there was only one place that had to be bolstered. The inside front left corner was starting to slide off it’s foundation stone. I solved that problem by hooking the column to my tractor and winching it back into place with a come-along. Then I built a buttress beside the column to keep it from moving again.

In late 2000, I bought a piece of property that was used as a farm for the past three generations. And even though just under six acres, was one of the prettiest pieces of land you ever laid eyes on. One half of the property is wooded and the remainder is rolling hills. At the westernmost section of the land runs a bubbling brook fed by a gushing spring. The water in that spring is crystal clear, fresh, and cool, all year round.

My wife and I borrowed my families RV and moved onto the property that same year with all intentions of building an English Style Tudor home on the front side of the property.

I’m an architectural designer by trade and had spent months laying out my wife’s dream home. (OK, I admit it was mine too!) It was going to be built using trees off the land that I spent six weeks cutting down and shaping into 8″ x 8″ beams with my chain saw.

Then we hit a snag. The place where we were to build our dream home sat too close to the power lines that ran across the front of the property. Sure, I could get the utility board to move them, but not at their expense. I’d have to pay for the entire shooting match and that just wasn’t in the budget.

By the time we got the news about the power lines, we had already spent nine weeks in that old RV and to be honest, it was getting sort of cramped seeing that three of our five children were still living at home. I don’t care how big the RV is, if there is a 5 year old, two young teens, and two adults packed in it, life gets interesting. My wife’s nerves were getting a bit frazzled and to be honest, so were mine.

On our farm, the only other suitable place to build sat the most beautiful old barn you ever laid eyes on. 64′ wide by 30′ deep. This barn had good solid construction with 6″ x 6″ columns, true 2″ x 6″ girts and rafters, 1″ x 10″ & 12″ planking on the walls and lofts floors. All rough sawn and true size. This building was nearly a century old and twice as solid as modern structures today.

When I got the news about the house, I tried to break it to my wife as easy as possible so I took her out for a moon light stroll. You know, one of those romantic type walks that women just seem to get all gushy about. On our stroll we walked up to the barn where I had stored all those beams I had made to keep them in the dry until needed.

Sweety, I said. “We can’t build the house right now. If I have to clear land to build it, there will be another three to four month wait before I can even start construction.” Then, off the cuff I said; “Maybe I could build us an apartment in the barn until I can start on the house.” Her eyes lit up and she asked me; “How long would it take to build?” I thought for a second and decided it would take probably a month to complete.

Her excitement returned and seeing her face light up like that spurred me on to swinging a hammer. I selected the widest open part of the barn and started the construction. I’m glad I had the utility board hook power up to the barn as it really made life easier to use my power tools.

I visited our local saw mill and bought as much raw lumber as I could. First I constructed a new loft area using some of the beams I had cut out, then using those same beams, started cutting out stairs. Next I enclosed the face of the opening with native rock and mortar at about three feet tall and then a wood wall on top of that.

I built the floor to the Living Room and Den and then started framing the Kitchen which would protrude out of the back of the barn. Next, the loft I had previously built became mine and my wife’s bedroom. From there I opened an area into the existing loft and started building the bathroom and two other bedrooms.

It has been close to eight years now and that barn apartment has become a full blown home complete with five Bedrooms, a Living Room, Den/Dining Room, Kitchen, Full Bathroom, Study, Sunroom/Laundry, Sewing Room, and a Garage. We haven’t even used up a third of the barn yet and our square footage is already around 2064 sq. ft. of heated area. That square footage doesn’t include the Garage, or Woodshop. The Garage is 13′-4″ by 20′ and the Wood Shop is the same size.

If you are planning to convert an outbuilding or barn into a home, you are in for a treat. Not only is there a rustic beauty but a whole bunch of possibilities for layout and use.

Lovely old barns have great historic connotations that we may want to preserve. We can all imagine all of the activity that must have taken place there in days gone by. Old barns remind us of bygone days of hard work and dedication to the land and the fruits of the land. This is the reason many people like to keep and restore old barn homes.

Once the scope of the project has been outlined, there will surely be a lot to keep track of in order to make sure the necessary items are preserved. Old barns have many beautiful features, as well as equipment that should be preserved or restored to their original condition. This is one of the major problems with a barn home renovation: how to keep the old intact while at the same time introducing modern features that will make life more comfortable, even if it just means adding your own bathroom accessories. If you want to get the most out of your barn home renovation, use these tips to make the job easier for you to do and also ensure that you will have a very livable home.

The most important feature to be concerned about in an old barn is the flooring. Don’t forget that this area of the barn got a lot of use over the years, and will probably will need the most renovating and maintenance. Barns are notorious for roof leaks, and water seeping in from such a leak may have damaged the floor. The first step is to clean up the flooring and do a thorough inspection for any damage of this kind.

The next step is to thoroughly check all electrical systems in the barn. An old building can be a real hazard if the electrical system is also old and probably unsafe. All too many barns have been destroyed by fires caused by faulty electrical systems. A thorough inspection should be carried out, and any defective electrical equipment should be immediately replaced.

Keeping track step by step of your barn renovation is an important task. You don’t want to lose track of any of the historical items and you also want to make sure the building is safe and able to give you modern comforts. If you don’t know enough about this kind of a project, you probably should hire a contractor to handle the job for you and make sure it gets done right.

Although not a new method of building a home, barn conversions are becoming more and more popular these days. The problem facing most families wanting to convert a barn into a home is the lack of know how involved in it.

It’s needless to say that there are many barns in various shapes and sizes all around. Many are in bad shape. Please don’t make the mistake of buying one that is labeled a unique fixer upper opportunity. Don’t fool yourself. If a barn has gotten into the shape where the boards are falling off the sides, unless you’re buying it for parts, my suggestion is to leave it alone. By the time the boards start falling off, there’s major flaws. The main trouble would probably be that the girts are rotting and the fasteners (nails) are turning loose.

When I built my home from an old centennial barn, there wasn’t even a handful of books and reference websites available on the subject. And when I talked with contractors on the subject, the most common response I got was a blank stare. Fortunately I was able to talk to some barn builders that had been in the trade for decades and were willing to share ideas on how it could be done.

One of the most daunting tasks was to repair the weather damage and remove the layers of dirt that had accumulated over the years. My particular barn was used to shelter horses and a few milk cows.

There are two methods of converting a barn.

The first method is to use standard residential construction practices, essentially making the barn into a standard construction home. Nine times out of ten after this type of renovation takes place, the barn no longer looks like a barn but looks more like a stylized residence. And the cost with this method sometimes exceeds standard residential construction.

The second method and the one my wife and I chose to use, employed the same materials the barn was built with. I went to the local saw mill and bought rough sawed boards to make up the interior walls and floors. Even the doors and windows were hand built with this type of method. We just made sure the house was well insulated and all the cracks were closed. This method saved us thousands of dollars and kept the charm of the old barn intact.

After the unique experience of converting a barn into a home, I have to say it is defiantly a life changing way to live. My wife and I choose a barn conversion over standard construction because of the lower building costs, not to mention being just plain different from the rest of the folks around these parts.

We choose an old stock barn that was built near a hundred years ago and was owned by a single family for generations. It had a lot of cultivatable land attached to it too. What a blessing. Using the same saw mill type of lumber the barn was built with we made a quite comfortable home complete with all the amenities. And with all the fertile land surrounding it, I became a part time farmer.

Three of our children were partially raised in our barn home and they say they would not have done it any different if they had been the ones choosing the type of home they lived in. My youngest son Will took over the stalls that were used for keeping the horses and cows separate. Matter of fact, he helped me with a major part of the remodeling by building the floors and walls of his room in the same basic rough wood the barn was built with. His big thing was making sure to leave the door open so I could ask him “What’s the matter with you? You live in a barn?” to which he always answered “Duh dad, yes I do!”.

My daughters, Ann & Kimberly were the hardest to please because of the one bathroom I designed into the house. Seems I never got around to building a second, plus the fact the only bathroom was upstairs in the loft. I’ll get around to building that second bathroom sooner or later even though Ann and Will have already moved out and started families of their own.

And my dear wife Connie, bless her heart, is always after me to change this or enlarge that. I learned a long time ago not to ask her for a “honey do list”! Last one she composed took me over a year to complete.

The greatest appeal to me with this type of home is, even though we have a front porch, doors and windows, very few realize our barn is a home. This adds to our privacy which we take very seriously.

Historic barns are places of mystery and wonder. They contain features of a life that existed in a time gone by that is worth preserving in the present day. When we visit a barn, we get a sense of the determination and hard labor that all citizens worked with, in order to survive. Their unsurpassed dedication mandates that this historic structure should be restored with magnificence and spender.

Keeping the barn at its best usually mean renovating it. You’ll discover how much renovation as you inspect the barn’s structure and other features that you want to save or reuse to adopt a physical record of the barn. There are some easy things to do when you are thinking about renovating your barn. These concepts will guarantee that these concepts used for you barn home renovation will be simple for you to implement will require minimal restorative work to bring the barn back to its former perfection.

Great Easy Tips
It is assumed that you are planning on making the barn your home. That is why you’re renovating it in the first place. So one of the initial items on your checklist ought to be the flooring. Inspect it thoroughly. Remember that it is the interior of the Barn structure that will require most of your effort especially in a well-used barn. Some items to think about are does the roof leak or has decaying vegetation such as hay damaged the flooring causing a hazard. The floor is easy to inspect. Simply sweep the floor clean of debris.

One important item that you will need to think about is electricity. What kind of power is available to the barn? You’ll want to check the whole system the electrical and mechanical systems. This is essential to ensure the safe operation of your building that you plan to live in. Bear in mind that numerous barns have gone up in flames due to improper fire safety systems that have resulted from poor electrical installations. Inspect old electrical wiring and fixtures. Do not buy cheap in this area. If you do buy cheap, the defective material and wiring will need to be replaced and it might cost you your life.

You have great dreams for your barn home and your barn renovation ought to run smoothly and it will pay-off if you are well prepared with a plan for you barn home. Make sure that you plan does not get lost as you journey through what sometimes feels like a journey through renovation jungle.

Don’t hesitate to ask for help from professionals along the way. The areas to be certain to ask for are plumbing, heating and air-conditioning, and electrical wiring. If you even listen to these professionals, it may just save you the cost of finding a new place to live later on.