Converting a Barn into a Home

January 15, 2018


 

The idea converting an old timber frame barn into a home is a great way to create a rustic one of a kind custom home.

Thanks to shows like Barnwood Builders and others like it the idea doesn’t seem so far fetched as it did 40 years ago when I built mine.

Today barn homes offer several unique incentives or benefits that few other homes can provide.

  • They preserve a historic structure along with its history, our heritage and a way of building that has been used for centuries. 
  • It saves natural resources by recycling quality material which are no longer available by reusing them in new and traditional ways. Saving them from the landfill reduces our carbon footprint.
  • Barn homes are some of the most energy efficient homes when combined with modern insulation methods.
  • They are very cost effective when compared to buying a new one from a timber frame company. 
  • The last benefit is the most difficult to describe because it relates to the rustic character of the home and the feeling one gets from stepping inside the space. For some its seeing the joinery and knowing it was all hand made while for others it brings back memories of a time when life was simple and people somehow lived without all our modern conveniences. 

Finding the right old barn is the subject of this report with subsequent articles about the design, restoration and building process of converting a barn into a home.