Cabin-style barndominiums are the new hot thing in the south. I was recently browsing a national chain bookstore in my local area, also in the south, and surprisingly ran across a book on designs and floor plans for building your own cabin. I’ve included a link to the book here in case you may be interested in more information on cabins in general. This book named simply “cabins” by Phillip Jodidio is chalked full of relevant information that you can take and use on your very own cabin-style barndominium build. Buildmax has made things even easier with our very own take on designing a cabin style barndominium house plan, that will appeal to almost any family when looking to build a cabin.  The Plan I’m referring to is our BM2472 and at 2400.  There’s plenty of space to live and entertain family and friends, Buildmax also makes it simple to customize, tweak and alter these floorplans, and with our assistance this takes the hard tedious task of altering the house plan to your specific requirements out of the equation. Maybe you want an attached garage, wrap around porches, more or less windows and doors, maybe you have specific interior plans for the home and need the walls arranged in a way the house plan wasn’t originally designed for. Our technically trained staff can build a custom floor plan for any of our barndominiums. A full custom design will cost substantially more money as well as take far longer to have ready and in your hands than one of our stock house plans, that you can buy today and get started on your project immediately. Our customers were constantly asking for material packages for our house plans. We can now assist you in arranging the material package to build your home, and we can even send out a crew to your job site to build the home.

Buildmax is mainly a house plan company, but if we can help our customers get into their custom dream home, that’s our main goal. You can get your materials in wood or my personal choice, cold form steel. A steel frame cabin is obviously more robust and rigid than a traditional wood frame and will ultimately last much longer with literally no maintenance at all. If you decide that a steel frame is overkill for what you want to build, you can build with wood in a post-frame configuration or post and beam or just wood frame it out on a slab like a traditional home. Post-frame or post and beam are different even though some people use the terms interchangeably, this involves around a 4ft hole in the ground with a post inside and backfilled with concrete for stability this is very popular in the south and a common way to build barns and barndominium homes, there are endless youtube videos, articles, step by step how-to instructions on properly installing post-frame construction components just in case you need to gain more detailed knowledge on the subject in preparation for your own post-frame build it’s good to know what you’re doing or at least help you gain a solid understanding of what is being done every step of the way during your build.

When it comes to building with steel, the advantages are pretty obvious out of the gate. The process is generally quicker when it comes to erecting the steel structure than traditional wood and takes a smaller crew of only a few men to position and raise the metal beams and fasten them into place. The barndominium kit will come on flatbed trailers and resemble a gigantic erector set; it will actually go together in the same fashion, with nuts and bolts. All components for the steel kits are engineered, manufactured and loaded in the south, making the shipping cost much cheaper if you live in the southern United States; however, we do work nationwide and ship materials anywhere in America. The Quality of the steel packages we provide is second to none; I have personally toured the facilities with our owner and inspected and handled the steel myself; I have been inside homes built with the cold formed steel framing and if I wasn’t paying close attention I wouldn’t have known it was a metal frame building. Using steel allows for large wide open expanses, this is ideal for large homes like our BM5550 and even better for a garage the strength of the beams allows for much larger free span without many additional support beams. This makes for large spacious areas that can look and feel much bigger than they actually are.

Back to the cabin aspect of the barndominiums we design, you can design any interior of any, home in america to resemble a quaint cabin like atmosphere it’s a bit more difficult with the exterior styling of a home, faux wood siding, or actual wood siding, as well as custom shutters and window planters can go a long way in how your home appears from the road or the outside in general. There’s a movement in America in which a mass exodus out of major cities is taking place due to overcrowding, small expensive cramped apartments that just aren’t ideal for growing families. Instead, they are taking a different approach and getting back to nature, re-discovering an amazing fulfilling and simplistic lifestyle that is more in line with an environment they want to raise a growing family in. As Henry David Thoreau, an American author and poet once said “ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front all essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” This is a powerful quote from a man who understood getting back to nature at a fundamental level.

Migrating out of the city and into a barndominium, designed somewhere out in the country, is a positive lifestyle change that we highly encourage here at Buildmax. What many families come to realize early on in the process is that they can afford a much more spacious home than they ever imagined. Rent is very high in almost every major city in the US, resulting in both spouses typically working full-time jobs simply just to make ends meet and to break even at the end of the month. Once you have determined what you can afford then it’s time to start the search for land, a cabin is best built-in or near the woods. The atmosphere and look of the property are almost as important as the styling. Placing your home on a piece of property that allows you to follow the styling you are shooting for. This will help really make the customizations to your home pop and ultimately tie everything together with the specific cabin styling that you desire. Everyone has their own taste in styling and by building your own barndominium you are getting an opportunity to put some of your personal taste into the exterior and overall styling of your new home even before it comes time to decorate the interior of the home. No matter how you want it built and no matter if you decide to build it with wood or steel, Buildmax will be there every step of the way to guide you into the cabin of your dreams.   

Since the start of the pandemic, everyone was on edge financially. Nobody knew if our economy had enough grit to pull through. With the shortage of homes on the market at the start of the pandemic and scores of Americans losing their jobs, it caused intense competition among homebuyers who were actively looking for a home. This caused a perfect storm in the housing market. All of a sudden people started to realize they were sitting on goldmines; people who had just purchased months earlier were seeing double-digit returns practically overnight. 

It’s working like this. Families that live in big metropolis-style cities like Dallas, DC, Los Angeles, and Chicago have started a mass migration out. They have realized that in the city they can only afford a cramped condo but on the same salary, in a more rural location, that same family can afford much more, potentially the farm they always dreamt of, or that beach home in Florida. As you can imagine sellers are falling over themselves trying to list their properties as well as their parents’ properties and brother & uncles…. Sellers know how hot the market is at any given time if they are in tune with their area, but when you see your neighbor sell his house with the flimsy porch and potholed driveway for $480k it makes you wanna put your house up on the market the following day for $550k, because why not! And so it continued, and sellers provided homes for families who where eager to pay above market price because the competition was that stiff in the housing market. 

Metro cities that are economically friendly such as Austin and Phoenix for example have become havens for families migrating out of larger cities, both phoenix and Austin have amazing up incoming areas that are being developed on a grand scale to accommodate the influx of families, the land is readily available as well leading many families that are flush with money to consider building their dream home in the country or a few miles right out side a metro area you can usually find a more rural space to build while still being close to town.

Buildmax is primarily a house plan company so we get the pleasure of talking with many of these families first hand, when they get excited about a project it gets everyone involved excited. Just knowing that you have a part in providing a design that a family will get to use is very satisfying for our Team at buildmax. The barndominium style floorplans are our main focus, take a look at some new designs or do a virtual walkthrough to get a real feel of what you could build on your own land!

Condo’s today are selling at a staggering 17.3% discount according to Redfin.com the largest discount on single-family homes since 2013, actually. If you have even remotely considered a condo for the near future, now would be the time to make that dream happen. With the mega influx of families on their way to a town near you, once quiet hamlets will soon be overrun, forcing residents and incoming families to explore further and further off the beaten path to escape the ever-growing towns and once quiet towns dotted across the heartland. This is not such a bad thing for many of these towns that need some life pumped back into them. Not everyone will agree but progress is a good thing, a large majority of these families migrating to a more rural setting are blue-collar hard-working Americans some with fledgling businesses that can help in growing the local economy by providing much-needed jobs. Some towns rely heavily on local businesses to stay afloat; the more off the beaten ath you go you will notice it takes longer for these rural communities to bounce back after economic hardship like the pandemic. 

Short term rentals will soon skyrocket making the choice to build a barndominium in the country an all too real option, Short term rental properties can be good in certain situations like if you travel alot for work or your single and like to explore and live a more free and nomadic lifestyle, or maybe you would prefer to live in a short term rental while you save more money and plan a little more. That is something I would highly recommend there’s nothing wrong with proper planning. Too many people get in over their heads because of a lack of planning. Be confident in your ability to design and build the barndominium of your dreams with the help of Buildmax.com  call us today!

Knowing what you want out of a barndominium can sometimes be the easiest part of the whole process. While getting funding from a financial institution that is comfortable with your barndominium build, now that can be another story entirely. Banks and any lender for that matter will run for the hills when they hear the word barndominium. The reason is two-fold: they really have no idea what you mean when you say barndominium. Secondly,  they don’t have the slightest clue how to start pricing out a loan with no other barndominiums in the area to compare to. The lender will politely tell you that the risk for the institution is just too high on a project like this, and without a builder, the risk is especially high. 

To put the bank and loan officer at ease, we aren’t even going to use the word “barndominium” in fact, anywhere we would say barndominium we are going to say custom home. You will immediately see a change in attitude because now you’re speaking a language that they can understand, but nothing has changed at all with the project. Essentially, your barndominium is nothing more than a custom home, at Buildmax; we have begun to move away from the term altogether, just because it’s confusing to customers, banks, and builders alike. Barndominium is a great term to describe the styling you’re shooting for but does nothing as far as describing the overall building process. For instance, any plan you find on the Buildmax website was designed originally for a straightforward traditional stick-built process. However, the plans can easily be adapted to a number of building styles. One of the most popular ways to build a barndominium is with a steel kit, and with the price of lumber at an all-time high more and more of our customers are opting to build with our cold form steel framing option. It’s important to keep in mind when I talk about a steel kit that you understand that I’m only talking about the frame, which is essentially an unfinished shell. No windows, no doors, no insulation or drywall. You will get cut-outs for the window and doors to be hung. For the price, the steel will last much longer, have fewer overall issues, and be stronger in extreme weather. Either storms, wind, or snow, the cold form steel is up for the job.

You can finance your build in a number of ways. Maybe you don’t need to borrow the full amount since you’ve been saving and planning your build for such a long time. Maybe your situation is different and you do need to borrow the full amount? Can you even qualify? We get asked about financing a lot, being in the house plan industry, and to be completely honest we like to direct our clients to someone that we know and trust. I’ve included that information here. New Century Bank has been great at getting some of our customer’s money in order to build their dream barndominium. Buildmax likes to stay in our own arena and we tend to not answer too many financial questions because we just don’t have the answers you need, but we know someone that does. We are more than happy to connect any of our customers with our go-to guy for financing a barndominium home.  

I’ve noticed that many small hometown banks, credit unions, and Independent lenders are more comfortable and in turn more likely to lend money on a barndominium or a custom home, whereas most if not all larger banks like Chase, PNC, Bank of America and others tend to not lend as much money for home builds that are outside of the norm or that the bank just isn’t completely inside their comfort zone. Everything at the bank is done on a case-by-case basis, so it’s not entirely fair of me to generalize and paint the larger well-known banks along with their loans as unobtainable to the common American. Many factors come into play when borrowing money from a financial institution, for instance, do you know your credit score? how much you can afford for a down payment, is your property paid for, or do you still owe money on it, what is your yearly income? what is your debt to income ratio? As you can see with so many factors it would be really easy to slip up and make a mistake or for you to simply not qualify based on just one of many factors all it takes is one discrepancy for many banks to deny your application.

It is also good practice to fill out the application with the assistance of a qualified loan officer. Many people like to fill out the paperwork on their own and submit it to the bank that way. I’ve found the best way to secure a loan is by 1 on 1 interactions face to face with a loan officer. If you can get the loan officer on your side and understand your build, you have a much greater chance of securing financing, I like to think of the loan officer as the Gatekeeper; nobody gets through unless he approves access. In preparation for your appointment with the loan officer, it’s important to be well organized, clean-cut, slow methodical speech and already have a copy of all your documents printed and organized for the loan officer this will show him you are serious and organized and have already taken steps to get this loan. 

Finding the balance between your ideal rural barndominium life and the pursuit of the American dream doesn’t always have a straightforward path; Rarely is this actually the case. The American dream has evolved over time. Life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are core to what America represents to the world abroad. Over time the pursuit of happiness has families on the move in full pursuit of a slower-paced lifestyle than that of the big industrialized cities and endless miles of factories that they know so well. These families have the money and motivation but know little about rural living, rural society, and generally how to survive and become more self-reliant. The rural lifestyle can take some adjusting, especially if you’re coming directly from a densely populated city into sparsely populated woodlands. My first tip would be to join a community group of some kind to get involved in community projects, this helps you integrate into the community more easily and this also allows you to use relationships that are made through community groups that can directly benefit your barndominium build, many of the individuals who are involved in community groups are also the same individuals who are running the local government offices the same ones who approve or deny building projects. Generally speaking, it’s much easier to get projects approved in rural areas. Small local rural building departments tend to have less stringent code requirements, giving you more freedom to build what you like and, maybe even more importantly, where you want to build it. 

Mingling with locals in a rural setting might seem like a difficult task, especially as an outsider; here’s a tip I’ve picked up over the years that has helped me make friends with some very influential individuals in the community, the first thing you want to do is wake up early before the sunrise; I’ve noticed a trend that isn’t confined to my area of the southeast united states, however. it’s very predominant here all over the south, especially,  old men love to sit and drink coffee and talk to each other. Keep in mind most of these men are lifelong friends and probably work alongside each other in some capacity. Find the local watering hole; this could be a gas station in town. Dairy queens are hugely popular with the early morning loitering elderly man; maybe it’s the free coffee refills or the open dining area that keep them coming back for more every morning. Getting to know these guys can help in more ways than you can think of; they are your neighbors and between all of them, they have a few thousand years of experience and wisdom, so a pretty solid group of chaps to get to know.

Utilities in rural America can be a bit different than what some are used to. I recommend building your home with a good quality Generac or similar backup generator system. This will keep you covered in the off chance that your electricity is knocked out due to storms, snow, lightning, etc. These stand-alone backup generators will kick on immediately in the instance of an electrical disruption. In rural areas, the electric company may have their hands full. It could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days for the repairmen to fix the issues. Anyone without a backup generator has to sit in the darkness, without any heat or any way to cook. Many rural homes were built with wood stoves installed. I’ve written a sister article on The ideal modern homestead that gives a bit more clarity on what a modern homestead looks like in 2022. Back to the stove, which isn’t a bad idea even with today’s barndominium homes. Wood stoves are great; they provide a form of very efficient heat and a form of cooktop as well. Many rural areas don’t provide water or sewage so you will more than likely need a septic tank installed for your sewage and you will be solely responsible for the maintenance, which includes having a company come out occasionally to empty the contents of the tank. This is an added expense on your part. Finding a source of water for your Barndominium is also your responsibility in many rural areas, maybe that looks like a well, or digging a ditch to the closest county road to pipe in water from a county source. Maybe your property has its very own source of spring water you can readily tap into, which is very common in rural settings, especially in the east, where the temperature stays low.  These are all options to consider and your location will determine much of this. 

Safety and preparedness are something else I like to put into practice. keep in mind local police, fire, and rescue, and ambulance services will take longer to arrive to country locations that are off the beaten path, things are less likely to happen with a smaller population but it still happens. Normal security features like alarms for your front door and windows are common, as well as deadbolt locking mechanisms. You have to buy some extra time for the emergency services to arrive so think about time-saving measures you can take at your property in the case of a burglary, home invasion, serious injury, etc. Living so far away from a hospital can be a scary prospect. Having a stocked first aid kit is very important on a farm or even for a standard rural residential home. accidents can happen anywhere, especially in places such as farms, shops, mini-farms, homesteads, and places where moving equipment and heavy tools are directly involved. Cameras are another security feature that can do wonders to deter thieves in a rural area, if someone knows they are being watched, they are much less likely to commit a crime. This can give you a clear view of anyone visiting your property while you are away. Having video evidence gives you leverage to provide to local authorities who will more than likely know the perpetrator anyways due to the small close-knit communities found in rural areas. 

With over 60 million of our current residents living outside the borders of major cities and located in rural locations, having less crowded and congested traffic, close-knit community life, friendly neighbors, and breathtaking landscapes. With beauty also comes some adjustments and preparations but as long as you’re aware of what you’re getting into and have a solid plan on how you want to move forward, country barndominium life can be the pursuit of happiness that you’ve been searching for, Buildmax can help put you on a path to the Ideal rural barndominium with a house plan from Buildmax.com today!

The Internet can be an intimidating place to search for home building advice, house plans, or even financing options for purchasing a potential barndominium. This can especially be the case for individuals who don’t use computers on a daily basis. We tend to forget or overlook the fact that not everyone grew up on computers. Some older individuals, may have never used a computer at all. This is actually a very small portion of the overall population at only about 16% of Americans today being computer literate. Compared to an international average of 23%. However, attempting to navigate through treacherous minefields of half-truths and biased articles that are only intended to generate profits. As a new computer user, this can be confusing and it makes it even easier to simply get lost online looking at outdated websites and ultimately not really ever running across any content that is particularly valuable to your build. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you will have a better idea of where to look online for some inspiration for your barndominium build. Whether you’re in the market for some modern barndominium house plans, or you’re simply trying to get some ideas and haven’t taken any serious steps in regards to building. either way, the internet has absolutely no shortage of inspiration. Everyone wants to show off their build, most people are very proud of the barndominium that they created, especially if they had a hand in the design process from the beginning. This gives you more of an appreciation for everything that goes into building your own home. Most people on the street have no idea what it takes to build a barndominium from the ground up or where to even start with the process. I’m about to clue you in on where I start when it comes to my builds. 

Instagram, Pinterest, & FB Groups are my top three social media resources that I like to steer my friends, customers, and even my family towards. I like how these platforms allow for powerful browsing of any topic you can imagine in terms of designing a barndominium and then options you to interact with real people ( in most cases) on their projects, designs, decor, instructions, schematics, valuable advice, as well as product reviews short and long term product reviews. This will save you money and time. You can find tips and tricks, and Life hacks for building your own barndominium. The main reason that I steer people towards these platforms is simple; you can draw and gather a tremendous amount of inspiration from any one of these platforms. If you are not 100% sure what you want to build as your forever barndominium, drawing inspiration from the success of others all across the united states and beyond can have a very positive impact and can light a fire inside you igniting a passion to build something that you will live with and love for years to come something that you can share with the people in your life that mean the most.

Finding and taking advantage of services online will open up the whole world as a marketplace for you. No longer are you limited to your local area’s resources. you can purchase goods and services online from anywhere in the world. Shipping costs are a factor and I always check shipping costs before buying anything online. Many times the shipping is calculated separately and added to a total within your online shopping cart. Services like house plan companies, general contractors in your area, foundation specialists, banking, and finance options, the resources are right at your fingertips. It just takes a little looking. Buildmax is a company that can take a set of existing barndominium floor plans of which they have plenty to choose from and modify them to meet your specific needs.

Buildmax can help you get a quote for the steel framing package and maybe even point you in the direction of someone to erect the framing to get your house underway as quickly as possible. It’s amazing what you can get done online these days. You can literally design your own barndominium floor plans or use stock Buildmax plans and order a strong rigid cold-formed steel barndominium kit tailor made for your family. Delivered in around about 6-8 weeks from order give or take, but nothing like the 6-12 months for a red iron steel frame to be manufactured and delivered. Red iron steel is much, much, much heavier, bulkier, uses more metal, and it takes much more equipment and manpower to erect. Where cold-formed steel could be erected by a few guys with hand tools if need be. Cold-formed steel takes significantly less time to manufacture, transport, and erect. With the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia forcing fuel prices up, this will ultimately have an effect on steel prices across the board.  Russia is also a leading producer of aluminum which is used in the manufacturing of the specific alloy that is used in the cold form steel components, further affecting the cost of business. Compared to Lumber, you’re still getting a bargain. Steel will outlast wood in every category. However, any of the Buildmax house plans can be built with either traditional wood or cold form steel, whichever you decide.There are plenty of sources of inspiration online to be found if you carefully look in the right corners of the web and use care not to get sucked down any far-flung rabbit holes or get misdirected by incorrect information. Generally speaking, people want to help others with accurate and correct information. I’ll be building a tiny home in the next year, so I’m in the process right now of gathering ideas and saving pictures to my computer of decor and designs that I may want to use in the future. I still haven’t decided on an interior layout, so I have a lot of inspiration yet to find. If you find yourself in a similar place, I wish you luck and patience. It’s not always easy designing your own barndominium or doing much of the work yourself, once it’s all built and you have turned an idea into a real home. You are now able to live in the benefits of your hard work and your detailed online research and inspiration to determine exactly what you wanted your forever barndominium to be. 

Homesteading has become a popular alternative lifestyle all across the united states, as families began to migrate out of the larger cities and spread out into rural America, many of those families coming from the inner city wanted a healthier environment to raise a family in, as well as to be more self-sufficient and rely on governments and outside the industry as little as possible. Groups of families have homesteaded this fertile land for centuries and every generation has groups passing on that torch. Homesteading is much more than having a few chickens and a garden, however, you have to start somewhere so don’t be embarrassed if that’s all you are starting with. Every successful homestead is built with necessity and ease of use in mind. The goal is to grow your own food use sustainable energy to whatever extent you feel necessary, most homesteaders have some type of animals, cows, chickens, goats, alpaca, pigs, you name it and you are likely to run across it on a homestead, not to mention the native wildlife that can be a resource as well as native plants, homesteaders typically immerse themselves in the local ecology to develop ways to be more self-sustainable, less reliant on 3rd parties and learn how to better adapt to the environment.

Buildmax has a couple of plans that could be turned into the ultimate homestead. The plan that pops into my head first is the BM5550 because of how much space the barndominium provides. When homesteading you can never have too much storage space. The BM5550 will allow you to plan for the future in ways other barndominiums just fall short, you can use the rooms for anything you like, with the kind of space a Barndominium like the BM5550 has you could have an amazing state of the art indoor hydroponic garden and have vegetables available to you as a resource year-round. Having room to store your equipment is important not only from an organizational perspective but also for the longevity of the tools and equipment, things last longer when they are properly stored; this also gives you the luxury of always knowing where that tool is and not having to dig through a pile of tools and extension cords only to find the drill bit you’re looking for is missing out of the box. Everyone has experienced this at some point in their adult life.

 Every homestead is going to be different depending on the extent of modifications needed to get your plans to the point where they reflect the vision that you have for your homestead barndominium. Most modern homesteads take full advantage of solar energy; solar panels can be adapted to any barndominium, no matter the size or modifications required to the house plans. Solar panels are typically mounted up high to get the most use out of the sunlight. This is why it’s popular to mount solar panels on the roof of your home, as long as your roof pitch will allow for access in such a way that general maintenance can be undertaken. The roof is ideal for mounting solar panels. Solar panels can also be mounted on the ground if you don’t like them mounted on your home, usually placed on a small rise or hillside, and can easily be manipulated & manually adjusted to capture as much daytime sunlight as possible. Having an area to store batteries is another factor when considering solar as an energy source. The batteries can take up some space and be pretty heavy. Generac Powercell and Tesla Powerwall have developed solutions that mount on the side of your wall and store energy in batteries pods within the mounted unit and are becoming increasingly popular for modern homesteading applications.

Animals are a large part of many modern homesteads, chickens are by far the most popular, almost every homestead will have a chicken coop, this can add to the overall theme as well as provide you with eggs putting you that much closer to being completely self-sufficient. A chicken coop can be a fantastic weekend D.I.Y project our personal chicken coop took a couple of days to erect and another to finish, but it has proven to be the single most reliable supplier of food to our kitchen once the chickens started laying. We honestly had to start giving away our eggs because we had so many, which is a great problem to have. Sheep and goats can be nice. I’ve never personally had any goats, but I do have plenty of friends who raise goats and they are pretty adorable but can be somewhat temperamental at times and they can eat ALOT! Another animal I’ve noticed popping up on homesteads across the country is Alpaca. I know they use alpaca fur for many clothing applications, so there may be a financial benefit to owning an alpaca aside from the aesthetic benefits of having a handful of extremely cute furry animals roaming your homestead.

A homestead can be many different things depending on your needs, the size of your family you are hoping to support with your homestead, and cost as in what is your budget to get your homestead underway. With budgets tight and prices in the stores at an all-time high, it’s easy to understand why a new family would choose to move out of the city and build their dream homestead barndominium in a more rural setting. Odds are, the school system will be more hands-on and student-focused than many of the inner-city school systems tend to be. Not all, there are some exceptions. Job opportunities are more scarce in rural communities, but with a larger portion of the population working remotely anymore, many families can work from home and tend to their ever-growing homestead. The maintenance on a homestead is a full-time job in itself. The general upkeep and feeding of the animals are enough to keep a person busy most days, not to count those unexpected fixes and projects that pop up on a weekly basis that also eat up your time. Running a barndominium homestead takes dedication and a passion for self-reliance if you have what it takes to build and operate a homestead and that’s the direction you and your family are headed. I urge you to take a minute to explore the barndominium house plans Buildmax offers for your homestead application; you may see something you can’t live without.

I’ve noticed lately that most of the people that I speak with who have been dreaming and planning to build their own barndominium generally have unrealistic expectations when it comes to purchasing a kit barndominium. I’m mainly speaking of the everyday American who has a minimal construction background but dreams of building their own barndominium.  Somewhere along the line people are misunderstanding the process, or exactly what it is they are buying. In this article, I hope to go over what to realistically expect when buying a barndominium kit; what that process looks like, a realistic time frame, and realistically what to expect regarding barndominium kit pricing. What price is a good price?  In the hypersonic internet age that we now live in people expect to be able to log onto their computer, and buy a barndominium kit online that will come in the mail in 10 business days. While this isn’t exactly the case, it’s honestly not far off from the truth, well… for the most part. Granted you may find some companies out there who sell their specific kit and nothing else. If you want exactly what their kit offers without changing a thing, and you love it just the way it is on paper,  that may be the route for you. It will most certainly be the cheapest option by a long shot. 

Generally speaking, the process takes a little more attention to detail and planning, especially if you want an actual barndominium kit based on real home plans. The industry has had to adapt how it sells kit homes to an online market in recent years. Buildmax has taken its awesome barndominium plans & designs and adapted them for cold-formed steel barndominium kits. What this means for you is that you can choose the barndominium plan of your dreams on Buildmax’s website and work with their designers to modify that plan for your family’s specific needs. Then, when the modifications are complete, the kit is ready to be manufactured and shipped. It’s as simple as that. This process doesn’t happen overnight like some customers would like; knowing what to expect in regards to a timeline and the manufacturing of the cold-formed steel kits will save you from wondering what is going on with your kit. I like to also remember and recognize that there are a lot of technical skills involved in drafting plans and even more technical skills involved in manufacturing the metal framing for your kit. These are not at all processes you want to rush. It’s extremely important that the workers take their time doing their specific job as well as inspecting each piece for imperfections as it’s coming out of these monstrous metal clamshell-like presses that form the steel into shape. Even at this rate, cold form steel manufacturing is still much faster than alternatives like red iron steel building kits, which take much more time to produce and will use much more metal in the manufacturing process just due to the size and thickness of red iron steel in general. As far as time frames are concerned, everything obviously depends on many factors but in general terms, Buildmax can have one of their barndominium house plans, modified or stock and have those house plans manufactured into a steel barndominium kit, inspected, wrapped, loaded, and ready for delivery in 6 weeks or less, which is pretty mind-boggling even in the world of construction where processes tend to move fairly quickly completing one task and moving on to the next in order to complete a job.

Pricing out a steel barndominium kit can be very complicated, lucky for everyone Buildmax has developed a process that makes getting an accurate quote priced out based on current market prices. Buildmax will use your house plans to calculate and determine what metal framing components are needed down to every nut and bolt. Once Buildmax runs these calculations through our cold-formed steel software, the computer will generate a very accurate quote based on the specific house plans,  price of steel, and many other factors. Without the software doing the calculations, it would take much longer to accurately price out a kit like this. which I believe is why it’s so difficult for kit homes to be priced accurately and sold online. Cold-formed steel kits are a great value to the customer in more ways than just a reasonable price the amount of structural integrity that comes along with it is worth the extra money over traditional framing options. With the current steel prices being comparable to lumber prices, you can build a stronger sturdier home that will last much longer, cold-formed steel will never Rot, burn, or be eaten by bugs & critters all for just a little bit more than it would cost to build your dream home with some boring regular old dead trees. Technologically speaking, using cold-formed steel to frame your barndominium just makes more sense for the future in general, the technological advancements in metallurgy have been very substantial, creating ever stronger and lighter alloys, in turn pushing metal industries and metal frame construction methods to new heights. Everyone wants to have the latest tech and your home should be no different. You spend a large portion of your life in your home having the peace of mind alone, just knowing the strength of your home is enough for some families to go all in a steel-frame barndominium and I think you should as well. 

A steel frame barndominium even makes sense from an investment perspective between the durability and longevity of the steel frame the reasonable pricing compared to traditional framing and of course the peace of mind, even in higher risk areas like along a fault line, locations prone to high winds and rain, even in extreme blizzard conditions withstanding intense snow loads. Strength and durability play a huge factor in any customer’s mind when building a home for their family and in the end, you’re really investing in the safety and security of your family when you choose to build with cold-formed steel, and honestly, you just can’t put a price on that.   

The hottest places in the nation to build a barndominium might surprise you! You could be living in a barndominium hotspot and not even realize it. I’ve done a little market research to see where in the United States barndominiums are trending at the highest rates, and I was somewhat shocked myself. It seems like from the rough data that barndominiums are trending all over the US in high numbers but the highest are consistently seen in states such as  Wyoming, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, & New Mexico states with wide expansive geography and massive rural landscapes. The barndominium trend seems very strong in the west and the midwest going into 2022. The southern United States has also seen an incredible uptick in barndominium builds, with Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama leading the pack down south as far as houses on the ground. When choosing the right place to build it comes down to personal preference and what is best suited for your family’s needs, the barndominium itself is suited for just about any environment no matter if you decide to build with steel, wood, or insulated concrete forms as your building material, it will perform as any other house would. Some areas may require additional insulation or heated flooring options if the cold is too extreme in the winter. 

The hottest places in the United States to build a barndominium has to begin with Austin Texas. the artistic scene in Austin is booming, as it has been for the last 10 yrs. Austin Texas provides you with the support and the freedom to create something unique to you. Having an artistic kind of outlook and mindset on a build undoubtedly allows for a lifestyle that encourages the cultivation of novel ideas and that’s not only important to your build but also to your overall health and wellbeing. People often tend to build their barndominiums near a body of water. Fishing creeks are plentiful all over the state of texas and snake all across the southland. I’ve seen barndominiums built along the shores of a lake, small flowing brooks, rivers, even right on the coast with the ocean as your backyard! whatever you like, the best water is probably the most popular geographical feature people gravitate towards when building their barndominium. The sounds of the water can be ultra-relaxing and therapeutic, especially after a long day at work. Allowing yourself to unwind on your porch with the sound of water in the background is very satisfying. I can totally understand the attraction to the water.

If views are more your thing then our next trend will sweep you away, I’m talking about Mountain views, colorado has some of the best most spectacular views of the Rockies and people have been building there for centuries just for the views provided by this unique landscape. I just returned from a holiday vacation in the great smoky mountains. One thing I noticed with the recent developments in the area was obviously way more barndominiums. More than I’ve ever seen in the area before. Having mountain views can increase the resale value of your home, especially if you take the view into account from day one of the builds and build your barndominium around the environment giving you the best views you can get out of your property. We have amazing mountains in the united states from the Eastern Appalachian mountains that stretch from Georgia all the way up through Virginia and all the way into Maine. Then you have the rocky mountains out west in Colorado that stretch into Canada. The superstition mountains down in the southwest United States sit in the arid climate of Arizona, as well as plenty smaller mountain ranges up north and throughout the midwest, with a healthy amount of populated towns mixed in with rural backcountry seriously spectacular places to build barndominiums. 

Over the past few years, and especially since the pandemic has kicked in full force, there has been a major migration of families leaving major cities and looking to settle in more rural areas of the country. Space and personal freedom is becoming more and more important to young families, with more and more companies now offering work from home positions it has made it possible to leave some of these big cities in search of a simpler slower paced lifestyle by building the perfect barndominium far away from skyscrapers and constant noise.

Many people are traveling in RVs and campers with their work-at-home jobs, but eventually, those people will want to find a place to settle down and stay. Building a small economical barndominium can be a great option for work-at-home travelers who wander upon the perfect place to put down roots and start a life. There are many small beautiful tracts of land to be bought bordering many national and state forests. This will allow you to have the beauty and resources of the national forest right in your backyard. Many times Ranchers will purchase hundreds of acres around national parks for their cattle to graze throughout the year, if you get in contact with some of these owners of large swaths of farmland they will sometimes be willing to sell you a 10-acre plot to build on, you can buy certain apps for your phone like (O X hunt) and others that will allow you to see on an interactive map exactly who owns what property in a given area, allowing you to gain contact information for landowners fairly easy if you know how to go about it, this can be an invaluable tool even if your not looking at buying property, you can gain a lot of information on the area your building just by seeing who owns the property and where the property lines begin and end.

Rural developments can be tricky depending on how rural the good thing is generally speaking you will have much less restrictions and codes to watch out for during your build in rural areas, you won’t have to worry about hitting a gas line digging, in some cases you won’t need any special permits to even dig or start building. It all depends on how rural the county is and what kind of building codes they have in place this is all easy information to find at the local city hall, court house, building office, planning and zoning maybe. To what extent you will have to comply will all depend on the resources put in place by the county government of whatever area you plan on building in. My advice would be to take your time, don’t make any rash decisions and pick a place that everyone in the family loves, maybe even go as far as to rent a place to stay in the area for a few weeks to get a solid feel of the town, geography, weather, animals and anything else you may have missed on your shorter visits.  

Just about everyone I talk to wants their barndominium now, and I assume you’re probably no different than the rest of us. The sad hard truth of the matter is that about 99% of people who want to build a barndominium have no idea where to begin or the first step in building their own home, and there’s absolutely no shame in not having the knowledge. In response, a very large majority of the customers I’m working with on a daily basis have made the decision to build their barndominium as a complete steel barndominium kit and eliminate the guesswork from the equation entirely. Because Buildmax works directly with one of the fastest producing steel home kit companies in the United States we are able to quote out your entire steel package on the first phone call in many instances all we need is which house plan on our website you are wanting to construct, add any changes if there needs to be any adjustments or modifications made to the original house plan design and within a matter of minutes we can generate a list and breakdown of every nut, bolt, and beam it would take to build your dream barndominium once we have the quote for the steel package the project is essentially ready to be submitted for development. What is so great about a steel barndominium kit anyway and why wouldn’t you just frame up your house with wood as most people do?

The actual Steel Barndominium kits we provide to our customers is cold-formed steel, this method uses thinner gauge steel but is formed and crafted in such a way that it is extremely rigid and strong when connected and bolted together. The steel frames are rated up to hurricane-force winds, steel homes are super popular in areas with a high concentration of tornadoes and storms as well as all up and down the coastline from east to west you can find amazing steel framed barndominiums popping up. There seems to be a mass exodus going on with families moving out of the cities and out into the suburbs in search of a more rural and free landscape. The best part of the cold-formed steel kits is that in a pinch a few strong men can actually lift and bolt the steel pieces into place without any super-specialized skills, if you are handy and you’re used to building things or have some construction knowledge you will be blown away by how fast these buildings can go up. We like to think of the steel kits just like the old erector sets we played with as kids, they really are just about that easy. this is not to be confused with Red Iron steel which is something different than cold-formed steel, red iron is without a doubt more expensive & much heavier steel frame option it will also take months longer to produce the kit for delivery to the building site, I’ve personally seen quotes for red iron steel kits taking up to 6mo to produce and deliver. Our cold-form steel kits can be manufactured in a much quicker way allowing for some truly phenomenal turnover rates. It’s not unusual for us to see a customer buy one of our stock un-modified house plans off our website Buildmax.com  and decide they want a steel package after the quote came back either cheaper or close to the same price as lumber is,  manufactured and delivered in around 4-6 weeks flat depending on the location of the build, 4 weeks for a complete steel building package for a barndominium is unbelievable, it almost sounds too good to be true but It is true, you can have the materials to frame up your entire barndominium delivered in 4 weeks.

Something else that could potentially save you some considerable time and money on your build and Depending on what state you happen to be building your barndominium in,  Buildmax may have a crew of skilled laborers on standby in your local area that for a price will drive out to your build site and erect your steel frame. These men are experienced crews of multi-faceted craftsmen that could in a matter of a weekend possibly, erect an entire 5500 sqft barndominium frame. The erecting crews we work with are very familiar with and have tons of experience with erecting this particular brand of a cold-formed steel building as well as the building method itself, as it is a very unique product that can do some pretty amazing things for the price. As long as the designs aren’t too wild and intricate with 12 different roof lines or something crazy. These guys are honestly the best fit for the job, especially if you are interested in getting it done fast and correctly. Just something to consider and factor into your budget to see what may work for you and your steel barndominium.

Steel prices right now are almost in line with the price of lumber It’s a really good time to buy steel before the prices start to increase but as of today steel prices are still a tad bit higher than lumber, With the price of steel tied directly to the stock market don’t be surprised to see it fluctuate in some pretty dramatic ways depending on whats going on in the world politically, socially, religiously even. Many builders will do some serious market research to evaluate the possibility of getting a steel package at an amazing discount by spotting trends in the market to determine when the right time to buy is based on the current value and as soon as the stock prices dip down considerably, that will be the ideal time to buy a steel package will be. Not everyone cares about the stock market and how it can affect the prices of steel many people just want a steel package at a price they can afford and in a timely manner and they are willing and eager to pay the market value and that ok too. The main goal was that you get your steel package for a price that you’re happy with then everyone wins. 

I hope that you would consider a steel barndominium kit as a framing option for your next barndominium so that you too can experience the peace of mind in knowing you can sleep well at night knowing your house is more than structurally sound and that your home was built with the highest quality Cold-formed steel manufactured right here in the best country on earth, America! If a Steel frame barndominium seems like it’s everything you want and more give Buildmax a call today! @ 270-495-3250