A barndominium's floor plan is not limited by the steel frame. Northcraft supplies the engineered building shell — the frame, roof panels, and wall panels — built to your exterior dimensions. The interior layout is designed separately, by you or an architect, draftsperson, or designer of your choosing. This guide covers what to decide before your building drawings are finalized, so the shell and the floor plan work together.
Interior walls are not structural
In a steel building, the frame carries the roof and wall loads. Interior walls do not hold up the building, so they can go where you want them. This gives a barndominium floor plan more flexibility than a stick-built home, where some interior walls may need to bear weight.
What is not flexible after the drawings are finalized: the placement of exterior doors, windows, and any loft or mezzanine opening. Those are engineered into the building's structural drawings, because each opening changes how the frame carries load around it. Decide door, window, and loft locations before you approve final drawings — moving one afterward means re-engineering.
Where the garage or shop bay goes
Most barndominium floor plans put the living space at one end and a garage or shop bay at the other, or run the shop the full depth of the building with living space to one side. Decide this split early: it sets where the large door openings go, which is part of the engineered drawings, and it sets where the wet walls and insulated living-space walls start.
Wet walls for plumbing
A wet wall is any wall that carries plumbing supply and drain lines — kitchen, bathrooms, laundry. Group your wet-wall rooms near each other in the floor plan where you can. It shortens the plumbing runs and keeps the work simpler for your plumber, and it is easier to plan before the slab is poured than after.
Insulation and vapor barrier for living space
The portion of the building used as living space needs insulation and a vapor barrier sized for your climate. The shop or garage portion may not need the same treatment. Decide which parts of the floor plan are conditioned living space before insulation is installed, since that decision affects where the vapor barrier goes and how the wall panels are finished on the inside.
Permits for a residence
Most jurisdictions require a permit for a residential building, and a barndominium is reviewed as a residence in most places once it includes living space. Check with your local building department early in the floor-planning process — some jurisdictions have separate requirements for the residential portion versus the shop or garage portion of the same building.
Bring your own plans, or start from scratch
Northcraft buildings are not fixed catalog sizes. Every building is fully customized to your specifications, including if you already have your own floor plan and just need the exterior dimensions and opening locations engineered into the drawings. If you do not have a floor plan yet, an architect or residential designer can help you develop one around the exterior dimensions you choose.
For more on how barndominium shells are built, see our barndominium steel buildings page. For what goes into the cost of the building itself, see barndominium cost.