If you could build your barn again...

[Ridgewalker]

I am starting to plan my barn and am looking for input from you guys.

I have 50 acres that is a 1 hour and 15 minute drive from my house. I have a TC-29 with various implements, a couple of 4 wheelers, a dump truck and a few old (74' Ford F-100 Custom and a GMC 1976 Bicentennial edition, etc.) trucks that I am planning to restore down the road.

I want to build a building that could house the toys and give me a shop to work on them. (I have a tire changer, hoist, huge compressor etc in storage) and give me a weekend spot to live in, in other words a man cave!

So far I am thinking about a 40 x 60 with a 14' ceiling and a 10' lean to down the 60 side.

I was looking into building a shotgun style "cabin" across the 40' length with a full bath, kitchen, guest room, living room, etc.

I would like to come up with a lofted master bedroom concept that would have a walkout deck (deer blind).

It will be a weekend, vacation spot so I need something I can secure.

So, what you would guys do differently? Have fun poking holes in my plan, I am hoping some of you creative types will have some good ideas.

Edit: Chuck, I am in a "almost no codes" section...pretty much anything goes in rural Madison County.

 

[Chuck52]

Sounds like a great general plan to me, though the specifics will probably get complicated. I hope you will be building in a place where the building codes don't strangle you. Here in Missouri it can go either way...so many codes you spend a good while jumping through hoops, or no codes at all, which is great for those who do it right anyway, but can lead to "interesting" neighbor details.

Chuck

 

[tallyho8]

My barn is exactly the same size you are planning. 40 x 60 with a 14' ceiling and a 10' lean-to down the 60' side.

It sounds a little small for all you want to put in it. Everything may be able to be squeezed in now, but believe me, you will want to add things in the future.

My barn is not built on a slab and it is designed where I can add on 12' sections. It was originally 40 X 24 with the lean-to and then the next year I made it 40 X 48 with the lean-to and 2 years later expanded it to 40 X 60.

Now I want it 40 X 72.

 

[Nissan197]

I have a 40 X 50 with a 15' lean-to. I have my woodworking equipment in there along with my tractor and trailer and all my implements. The plan is to use the lean-to for 4-H animals in the future. Sounds like you have lots of automobiles and equipment. I would go larger than a 40 X 60 if it was me. Are you going to be building this yourself?

 

[dave1949]

Some food for thought - for a building mostly housing vehicles and tractor, 40' may be too narrow to make good use of the space. I would make it wide enough to park two vehicles, one behind the other, in each door bay. A full size pickup is 19' or 20' feet long, so 40' (39' +/- between the walls) is just a bit tight. 44' would be good and 48' would be even better. That way if you had a 20' wide door, you could park four vehicles in that door bay and still be able to walk between, behind, and in front of each vehicle.

A circle encloses the most space for the length of it's perimeter wall, next comes an octagon, then hexagon, and finally a square. Any rectangular shape uses more perimeter wall than a square for the area enclosed. A long rectangle uses more than a short one. So, it is to your advantage to make a wider shorter building compared to narrow longer one. This reduces your perimeter wall length - and the cost of wall materials. Less wall length to maintain in the future too.

If your shotgun style living area were 16' wide, your 40 x 60 building is now down to 40 x 44 of garage space. That sounds very tight for your planned uses.

I would think carefully about the 10' wide lean-to section. If you have a specific use in mind, great, otherwise, the more you divide space up, the less useful it is.
Dave.

PS - It would be nice in Misery to have an air conditioned workshop area separate from your general parking and storage areas.

 

[77transam]

Well Ridgewalker, I'd have to agree w/others here...go bigger. Based on your equip. list, I would suggest a "minimum" 40x80. If you want to include the living quarters in the bldg. space, a 12x40 footprint (w/a loft area) would probably be the min. size for the living area you're after. This would be 480 sq.ft. (Say a 10x12 bedroom,a 10x12 living room and remainder for kit. and bath and stairwell to loft.) If you deduct that sq. footage from the overall bldg. sq.ft. (3200), that leaves you 2720 sq.ft.

Now let's say the outside dimensions of a full-size truck are 18x8. (About the size of a parking space.) You've got 2 plus a dump truck (Let's say min. 12x25 for that). Now that adds up to 588 sq.ft.
Allowing 3 ft. per side on the 2 trucks to open the doors adds 240 sq.ft.(3 by 40(x2)) to the 588= 828 sq.ft.
Deduct that from the remaining 2720 and we're down to 1892 sq.ft left.

A min. bay area to work on stuff would be 20x25. That's 500 sq.ft deducted from the 1892, leaving 1392 sq.ft for the 4-wheelers,the tractor and implements,compressor,tools/tool storage and workbench area(s)! Doesn't sound like a lot left for those does it?

Now of course you can pull equipment outside to free up more room when you're working on equipment inside (weather permitting), and since I don't know the exact dimensions of the equipment, these numbers could vary, but you can see how quickly avail. space gets eaten up using this simple method.

I'm also going under the assumption everything will be "in house" under lock and key. :thumbsup:

I'm right there with you on this as My father and I have been racking our brains trying to determine the sq. footage needed for our shop.(40x80 is also what we're looking at!)
I don't know your budget or construction preferences, but we're looking at a minimum $40/50,000 for the building and slab alone(w/us doing a large portion of the work!), not including wiring,plumbing,running utilities or interior finishing.:laughing:

Hope this helps and post LOTS of pictures when you start!!

 

[hawkeye08]

One of the things that I would do (and still can and probably will) is add some pallet racks (like Home Depot) so I can stack things that take up floor space but certainly don't need 14 vertical feet. To effectively stack, you either need a forklift (takes more room, another thing to maintain) or pallet forks on your tractor. Remember if you go with no forklift and plan on using pallet forks on tractor to stack stuff on pallet racks that a tractor is not a forklift and takes more room to maneuver and is generally more difficult to control. I don't think I could build a shop big enough to be big enough. You just have to figure out your budget and where the line is.:thumbsup:

 

[magicheater]

Some food for thought .A circle encloses the most space for the length of it's perimeter wall, next comes an octagon, then hexagon, and finally a square. Any rectangular shape uses more perimeter wall than a square for the area enclosed. A long rectangle uses more than a short one. So, it is to your advantage to make a wider shorter building compared to narrow longer one. This reduces your perimeter wall length - and the cost of wall materials. Less wall length to maintain in the future too.Dave.

Interesting: 40X80= 320 square feet and 240' linear wall. 60X60= 360 square feet and 240' linear wall. I wonder what the difference in truss price is for the roof.

 

[hawkeye08]

Interesting: 40X80= 320 square feet and 240' linear wall. 60X60= 360 square feet and 240' linear wall. I wonder what the difference in truss price is for the roof.

I think you might have missed a zero or two.

40x80=3200 sq ft, 60x60=3600 sq ft

It generally costs more for longer spans once you pass a certain point. (no I don't know that point)

 

[Carl_NH]

If you start with 40x60 and do trusses and an 8/10x12 pitch you will end up with a 20x60 upstairs area for living. Due to supports necessary on the 40' width you might need posts but a steel beam in the center would offset this and may only need one center support.

The other thing with your lift, finish only 30-40' of the upstairs leaving 20-30' open for your lift (plus you can look at your raised car/truck from your bedroom . Something else I did was extend interior floor joists in 2x10/12 PT 6' off the gable end, creating a upper level deck 10' off the ground. These tie into the interior trusses by about 8 inside the structure. Then an interior stair (takes up some room) but gives you a more secure area when you are not there and a 6x16' deck off the ground for the "nature stand".

If possilble elmination of the support posts will make the area more adaptable but this means more robust trusses / floor. Generally speaking its cheaper to go up than out given you need a roof anyway.

Then the lean too / addition can be added now or when you are ready and need more space but if you do the first floor with 10' interior height, then you will have enough height to do the lean-to 8x60' with clearance for three vehicles on the side. I would probably do the frame roof and posts for the lean-to at the onset. Put this on the north side, to cut the weather from the main structure.

Several other things, put the man door on a gable end, snow tends to block them, build lumber storage under the steps inside. Plan out and build workbenches from the beginning, put a two 4" PVC pipe access points in the concrete for wiring/plumbing from the base to second floor. Finally insulate and put up interior storage before you move in!