Designing the interior spaces of your barndominium is one of the most important and rewarding aspects of building a barndominium. Interior design allows you to leave your personal touch on your barndominium. With interior design, you can create spaces that reflect your personality. It also lets you create spaces that make your barndo more liveable. While other housing options limit your interior design choices to a select few, barndominiums are flexible structures that can shine in various interior design themes and styles.
This article tells you more about what makes barndominiums the perfect structures for interior design enthusiasts. We will also give tips to help you develop an interior design that will make your barndominium shine.
What Makes Barndominiums Perfect for Interior Design Enthusiasts
Let’s look at some of the reasons that make barndominiums the perfect canvas for interior design enthusiasts.
They Have Open Floor Plans
Most barndominiums have open floor plans that serve as the ideal canvas for fantastic interior design concepts, including creative lighting solutions. Open floor plans provide ample space for showcasing your creative prowess, not just with art and photos but with innovative lighting as well. Consider integrating rope light decoration ideas into your design to add a warm and inviting ambiance to these vast spaces.
Open floor plans don’t have load-bearing walls, and they have minimal room divisions, so you have a continuous space to work with. This aspect also means that living areas are larger and more interconnected.
One of the benefits of open floor plans is that they promote social interaction. You can use this as an inspiration in developing your interior design. You can arrange your furniture into a central area that can act as the focal focus of your barndominium, like your living room or kitchen and dining area.
They Have Distinct Architectural Character
A barndominium will always have the distinctive natural elements of barns, such as large windows, exposed wood beams, and metal sidings. Metal barndominiums are mostly made of metallic building materials, but you will still see wood components. You can incorporate these elements into your interior design concept. What’s great about these elements is that you can use them in several ways. You can embrace the innate rustic charm of these elements and go for an old-fashioned rustic barndo. You also have the option of going with an industrial look with the help of the metal sidings.
They Are Multi-purpose
Barndominiums are multi-purpose structures. You can combine a residence with a garage, a home office, a workshop, or a warehouse. This means that you also have the opportunity to create an interior design for two completely different spaces. You can create a bright and fun space for the residential areas and a more formal and subdued one for the home office.
They Can Be Affordable To Build
Barndominiums are usually cheaper to build than traditional houses of the same size. They have simpler designs requiring less manpower and lower labor costs. For example, a metal home kit like this one costs under $40,000. Once installed, you can handle the finishing and interior design yourself instead of hiring a professional crew.
What does this mean for interior design experts? You get to save money on construction, leaving you with more to spend on designing your barndominium’s interior. You can also use the money you save to splurge on modern appliances or high-end furniture. Your guests will be surprised to see a simple-looking barndominium on the outside and a magnificently designed interior.
You Can Mix Indoor and Outdoor Living
By connecting your dining room to an outdoor space, you can easily expand it to accommodate more guests.
Photo by Mark: https://www.pexels.com/photo/kitchen-and-dining-area-1080721/
The generous outdoor spaces of barndominiums complement the interior perfectly, especially with expansive master suite layouts. Imagine a giant master bedroom with doors opening directly to a serene outdoor living area, seamlessly blending the comfort of your spacious interior with the tranquility of nature. For example, you can create an outdoor living area for entertaining guests, so there’s no need to tidy up your living room before and after. If you frequently entertain guests or hold dinner parties, you can install French doors outside your dining room to expand it when needed. You can even build an outdoor kitchen and dining area to allow you to cook for a larger group of guests as they enjoy the beautiful surroundings of your barndominium.
Barndominium Interior Design Tips
Here are some crucial interior design tips you need to keep in mind while designing your barndominium.
- Utilize Contrasting Textures – Interior design experts often utilize contrasting textures to give spaces character, a key principle in decorating brown leather furniture. The smooth and warm texture of a brown leather couch can be beautifully offset by adding elements like a shaggy rug, knit throws, or a sleek metal coffee table, creating a well-balanced and aesthetically pleasing living area.
- Take Advantage of Lights – Barndominiums often have high ceilings and many large windows. As a result, most barndominiums have well-lit interior spaces. Take advantage of this aspect by placing items of interest in areas that attract more light. For example, you might place a statement piece of furniture in a well-lit section to draw more attention. Arrange your furniture to allow as much natural light as possible in the living room. Aside from making the living room look more inviting, it can help you save electricity since there’s no need to use artificial lights during the day.
You should also be mindful of choosing the locations of artificial lights. If you have an open floor plan, use a large, bright light to illuminate the kitchen and dining area. This can help you conserve electricity. You can also install artificial lights of varying colors and brightness to allow you to choose different lights that are appropriate for various activities and occasions.
- Personalize – Your interior design choices are reflections of your personality. Use this opportunity to showcase your character and introduce your guests to who you are. You can go for a rustic or homey design if you have a laid-back personality. If you are designing the business side of the barndo where you will receive clients, you can go for a modern or professional theme.
- Consider Energy Efficiency – Interior design is not just about making your barndominium look aesthetically pleasing. It is also about making it functional and cost-efficient. Choose appliances and fixtures that look great but don’t consume too much electricity. For example, instead of fluorescent lights, use energy-efficient LED lights that are brighter yet consume less power. You can even use automatic lights that power on and off depending on the time to avoid wasting electricity by leaving your lights on. You can also use sensor-equipped faucets to ensure you don’t waste water by leaving the tap on.
- Carefully Choose Your Color Palette – Your choice of color palette greatly impacts how your barndominium looks. Light and bright colors give an artificial feel of spaciousness and are best for small or confined spaces. Warm colors, like red, yellow, and orange, evoke coziness and are ideal for large and open spaces like the living room or family room. Blue and green are relaxing colors and are suitable for bedrooms.
- Manage Clutter – Minimizing clutter is one of the objectives of interior design. No matter how elegant your barndominium looks, it will look shabby if disorganized. In designing the interior spaces, consider installing features or furniture to help you keep things organized. For example, undersink cabinets can help keep dishware and kitchen tools organized and out of sight for a tidy-looking kitchen. Consider installing shelves in the living room to store assorted knick-knacks that would otherwise be left lying around. You can also use wall-mounted home office or workshop shelves to keep important documents safe. If possible, design a storage space for your workshop or machine shop’s tools, supplies, and raw materials to keep them safe and out of sight.
- Take advantage of finishes – Accentuate the innate rustic charm of barndominiums by highlighting their unique architectural features, such as exposed wooden beams, high ceilings, and metal sidings. For example, you can highlight exposed wooden beams by using a paint color that’s a shade darker than your entire ceiling.
Final Word
If you want to showcase your interior design chops, a barndominium provides a perfect canvas. It has large open spaces for you to work on. It is customizable, so you have a wide range of interior design options to choose from. It is multipurpose, so you can use a unique theme for each area. A barndominium also uses a mix of different building materials that you can incorporate into your design. If you want a structure where you can experiment with various interior design styles, nothing beats a barndominium. Using the tips above, we are sure you will have a barndominium with an interior design that will leave your guests breathless.
Aileen J. Patentes, BSCE. A licensed civil engineer, she has seven years of experience in steel fabrication and steel detailing for metal buildings in the United States – both commercial & residential (barndominiums) sectors.
