Buyer’s Guide: Barndominium Interior Plans

How do you go from barndominium design to a finished home? It all starts with barndominium interior plans. Designing from the inside out helps you to ensure your home fits your life and can be a less frustrating process than trying to shoehorn your life into someone else’s dream home. Koskovich and Murphy Developments can help!

Types of Barndominium Interior Plans

Residential post-frame buildings come in several different shapes and sizes. Some are decidedly barn-like or draw their influence from farmhouse design. However, just as many are practically indistinguishable from traditional homes found throughout the Tri-State region. Depending on your living situation, a barndominium that combines home with your business, a garage, a workshop, or any number of other uses is possible. For us, that sense of endless possibilities is one of the best things about being a custom post-frame building contractor!

How to Plan Your Dream Barn

How can you make sure you’re getting the right design for your new barndominium? An architect or designer can help, but they’re relying on you to know what you want and need when the process is over and your barndo is ready. So there are some things to think about as you plan.

Design and Build Factors to Consider

Preliminary Sketch

This can be exactly that—a sketch. Visualize the space, then set about recreating it on paper. Graph paper can help with getting a sense of scale, especially when you’re factoring in countertops, furniture, the space taken up by a six-burner stove instead of a four-burner model, and the like. It’s not uncommon for designs to go through several preliminary iterations, or even to be visualized with help from your kids’ toys and Legos. Don’t be afraid to get creative!

Current Use

Who’ll be living here, and how will you use the space? A couple who’s retired but does a lot of entertaining will have different needs than a young couple with two kids. Give a lot of thought to how you live now, and how your current living situation falls short. This is your chance to design around your life.

Future-proof

You can add to a barndominium just as you would any other home, but there’s a lot to be said for thinking—and building—ahead. That retired couple may want to design around aging in place, which can mean keeping everything on one level. That couple with two kids may want more children someday and might add more bedrooms accordingly. Thinking ahead now will keep you from feeling cramped later.

Stay Flexible

If you have friends or relatives who come in from out of town, a guest bedroom is a good thing to have. But if people drop by infrequently, a flex room that can act as a home office, a playroom, or fill some other use helps to ensure that space isn’t wasted between visits.

Think About Your Priorities

If gathering around for a family movie night or hosting get-togethers during football season is high on your list of favorite things to do, design around that. Likewise, make sure your kitchen, dining area, and other common areas have a logical flow that keeps your home inviting.

Consider Your Site

The size, shape, and location of your lot will also influence design decisions. For this reason, we suggest starting your planning process after your land is acquired since some decisions—like where to place post-frame garages and carports, or which areas have the best views or inbound sunlight—will directly influence some design choices.

Interior Planning Mistakes to Avoid

Some things can sabotage otherwise successful builds. Knowing the pitfalls to avoid can ensure a home that adapts and grows with you in the years ahead.

• Don’t confuse wants with needs, especially when you’re trying to stay on budget
• Don’t forget to design as much for function and flow as you do for style; incorporate storage, built-ins, and other things that keep your home useful
• Don’t be afraid to define spaces rather than just leaving an open and undefined area
• Don’t do this alone; get a second, or third, opinion, since a fresh set of eyes on a project can help you spot things you’ve forgotten, overlooked, or shortchanged
• Don’t make it up as you go along; we understand that changes can come up during the build process, but those changes add expense and other headaches, so there’s no substitute for planning

Get in Touch with a Barndominium Interior Planner in Sioux City

If there’s one thing we can’t emphasize enough, it’s to find an experienced collaborator who can help with all phases of your project. A post-frame building contractor in Sioux City can help with the design phase, permit and zoning issues, site preparation, construction, and more. Koskovich and Murphy also warranties our work, and delivers a move-in-ready structure; you won’t get the former by doing it yourself, and even the latter is hard to find among Sioux City builders. So call us today to get started on a custom barndominium quote!