The word barndominium gets used for almost any steel shed with a bedroom in it. The version we like is the original idea: a working barn with a home above it, built as one structure.
A recent example in Idaho, delivered by our colleagues at Red Falls Timber, covers 75 by 60 feet under one roof. Horses live below; people live above. The whole prefabricated timber package arrived in three container loads, and the finished building reads as classic western architecture carried on modern engineered timber.
Two of these have gone up in Idaho so far, with a third planned. The lesson for anyone planning a large footprint on a mountain site: a repeatable timber structure can deliver a lot of square footage quickly, and it does not have to look like an agricultural building to do it. How it looks when it is done comes down to the finish.
Adapted with permission from a note by our colleagues at Red Falls Timber Co.
