I am new to this site. I am looking for some advice on my current situation.
We recently purchased 16 acres of land that is basically flat and completely cleared. Our plans is to eventually build our dream home on it. However, as a temporary fix we are planning on building a barn with a home/apartment/office area above it and live there for several years until we can afford the house we really want.
Here is the idea for the barn. It will be 70' wide, 30' from front to back, and 20' tall. The first floor will have 10' high ceilings and the 2nd floor will have 8' high ceilings.
While we live there the first floor will be used as a garage for our cars plus a 4 stall barn with tack room, wash room and storage area.
Once we move out we would eventually like to add a 70'x100' riding arena on to the back of it and the upstairs can be used as a viewing area or apartment or in-law quarters etc.
I will attach pictures of a rough blueprint that I designed.
My original thought was to have the building framed with clear span steel. That way it would be relatively easy to add the riding arena onto it once we move out. The shape of the clear span steal building would also allow a slightly vaulted ceiling in the living room of the 2nd floor.
Unfortunately, due to the deed restrictions on my land we can not use steel for the exterior of the building. It has to be either vinyl, wood, brick, or stone. I am thinking vinyl because I think it would be the least expensive.
I have contacted several different "online" steel building companies and it seems that I can get the materials and shipping of the barn for about $20-$25k. This of course includes steal siding which I wouldn't order because I can't use it. I don't know how much it would reduce the cost to not have the steal siding included. Then I would either have to erect it myself or have someone do it for me. I am leaning towards having someone do it for me but I don't know how much it would cost.
The other problem is I don't know exactly how to add in the 2nd floor. One company said they could engineer holes into the steel building for connecting points for the 2nd floor. Another company said it would be better to just build a free standing type platform inside the steal building. I didn't really like this idea. Both said they could include it made out of steal but both said it would cost about 3x as much as making it out of wood and doing it myself.
I did a quick and dirty quote online for the vinyl siding and on a building that size it looks like the vinyl siding would cost around $15-20k! OUCH! That is as much as the barn itself!
Anyways, I am looking for thoughts, ideas, opinions, etc. Would it be better (i.e. cheaper) to do a pole barn (I see those are quite popular on this site). What other ideas or suggestions do you have? I am quite open minded and looking for other peoples input!
I know that you said you could not use steel but here are some pics of my BIL's right up the road. it is 60X40 steel with an apt in one side. I will have to make several post as this site does not allow multiple pattachments.
That's nice. So you went the route of having the barn take up more ground space instead of building a 2nd floor. That sure does seem like it would make it easier to build.
I wonder what the costs would be to poor a concrete slab vs building a 2nd floor.
Well...now that I think about it. I would still need to make the building the same height in order to add the riding arena to it at a later date.
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