At the same time you add unparalleled charm and beauty to your new home and a certain “soul” that old vintage lumbers and timbers seem to convey. Building smaller energy efficient homes not only saves substantial money in the initial cost of the construction, but continues to save money each year in heating and maintenance costs.

    After years of building barn homes for others, we finally designed and built one for ourselves, which will be completed soon. It was important to build ours a modest size and as green as possible. Although it is a relatively small home, we have incorporated a large kitchen and dining room, great room - all with open cathedral ceiling - and a master bedroom and bath downstairs. Upstairs we have two other bedrooms with cathedral ceilings, half bath, and an additional open loft overlooking the great room.

    We used all reclaimed flooring, doors, stair components, stone, trim, casement, and hardware throughout the house. We also used recycled kitchen cabinets and vanity boxes that we put new face frames, exposed ends and doors on using vintage native American Chestnut. On the exterior, we used reclaimed weathered cypress. As its core, our home is a 150 year old,  30’x30’ two-story barn frame from Canada. We then added a 15’x30’ shed addition which makes a total first floor footprint of 1350 sq. ft. We have a 15’x30’ second floor in the barn frame and a 10’x15’ open loft for a total sq. footage of 1950 sq. ft.

     We like the idea of stick built -"lean-to"- shed additions on our barn frames as they are extremely economical to build and can be done in many different configurations and sizes to get the exact sq. footage and floor plan you desire. In our 15’x30’ shed addition we used conventional 2”x6” framing in the walls and then exposed antique rafters with wood sheathing, and have a cathedral ceiling that flows into the vaulted ceiling of the great room in the barn. For maximum insulation we used stress panels (SIPS) on the barn frame and roofs, and regular insulation in the stick built addition.

    Shed additions also tend to make the exterior more interesting and still be in keeping with the overall look of a traditional barn. Many barns - if not most- had shed additions built on to them over the years. The conventional additions also add some contrasting wall surfaces interiorly which helps to create a more diversified feel to the entire house. As much as we love old vintage lumbers and beams, too many can become heavy, somewhat boring, and expensive.

    Using the general scenario of starting with a relatively small or modest barn frame core and then adding conventional stick built additions to get the sq. footage and floor plan you desire, you can have the best of both worlds and build a wonderful affordable  home - full of charm, colonial character, exposed timbers, and maximum openness that barn homes especially tend to provide. Our home feels much larger than it is and everyone who tours it with us can’t believe it is under 2000 sq. ft. Of course, we can build larger homes as well using the same cost effective and energy efficient strategies.

    We have taken the time to include a lot of detailed information here about our ideas, products, services, and perhaps even philosophy with the hope that it will help you understand what we may offer you as a possible supplier, designer, and builder of your barn home. If you are interested, please read on, there is much more information here for you. You particularly might want to read about many of the cost saving strategies we use in our home building or get more info about our recycled building materials - The Many Faces of Antique Woods. Also please  visit our main web site Antique Woods & Colonial Restorations - for more extensive information and many more photos of some of our work. If you are interested in our help with design and architectural drawings for your project, visit our web page Barn Home Designs for more information.

Please feel free to email us or call Dale anytime (315)286-4847. He always enjoys talking about barns.