Enclose existing porch on this barn?

[btulloh]

This is an existing structure on a place I just bought where I will be moving in late winter/early spring. It's 36x80 plus this 10ft wide porch.



 

Nice porch, nice concrete, but I really don't need a porch. (Maybe put a dozen rocking chairs and a Cracker Barrel sign on the roof? lol). Posts are 8' on center, same as the main wall. Standard post-frame construction.

I'm thinking about removing the girts, metal, windows, and making the porch the outside wall. Adds 800 sq ft of enclosed space. The only downside I can see is the new space will be essentially ten 8x10ft bays because of the post spacing of the existing wall. Not the end of the world, but makes the new space a little more limited as to use, but I see more upside than downside.

Anybody see any real reasons why converting the porch would be a bad idea?  Thoughts and ideas welcome.



 

[beenthere]

Maybe make 10 horse stalls.. or 10 lumber storage bays..  or 10 gazillion other things..   8) 
 

Great looking shed.

[Sedgehammer]

If you enclose it , don't do the entire porch . Look better with at least 2 bays a porch 

[DDW_OR]

ten 8x10 bays

combine 3 on the end near the road to make a pontoon boat storage
combine the 3 on the other end for other storage, not tall enough for an RV trailer.
could park the 50 HP 4x4 tractor
and the 4 in the middle into a screened enclosure to keep the bugs out and BBQ, party, drink lemonade

or use some of the bays to store the more expensive attachments for your equipment.

or the 4 in the middle to make a guest house

[btulloh]

Good stuff so far . . .

I think I used the word "bays" improperly. It would add 10' wide by 80' long interior space. Open to the inside after the change.  There would be a 6x6 every 8' defining the new space when the existing metal and girts are removed and moved to the new exterior wall.

[Walnut Beast]

How big is the garage area? 

[Walnut Beast]

If you enclose it , don't do the entire porch . Look better with at least 2 bays a porch

Congratulations nice place! I agree. The front overhang adds to the looks and also serves as shade and protection from elements from weather. What about the backside doing another extension? Or putting up another structure. How many acres do you have. Looks like a great place. 

[trimguy]

Is it heated / air conditioned space ? Might not be large enough with the extra square footage.

[Walnut Beast]

What's the living quarters square footage in your barndo ? 

[Wlmedley]

Looks nice what ever you decide to do.

[Old Greenhorn]

Not sure of your climate, but up this way I would be looking for any enclosed winter storage/parking I could create out of the snow. How about just enclosing it with B&B you mill up and put roll up doors on both ends for your tractor and other stuff? If you heat/cool the building, no need to heat/cool the parking storage area.
 Without knowing more of your plans and situation or needs it's hard to guess any better.

[btulloh]

No living quarters. No a/c. I'll use it for machine repair, fab, storage, etc. And temporarily set up my woodworking tools until I get a woodshop built. Some pallet racks, shelving units will be installed. It's a utility building not a barndominium. Not really concerned about the looks out front as much as increasing covered interior space, although having those doors in the middle might be kinda nice. In reality, I probably won't be using those front doors much. Maybe for breaks and weather observations. 

There's a walk door in back next to the 12' rollup that will probably be my normal entry point since the rear side faces the house.  I do plan to add a 20x20 concrete pad back there by the rollup with a roof over it.

Twenty acres total, about half open, half wooded. I'm downsizing quite a bit but still need a little space to feel comfortable. 

I plan to add a separate sawmill shed and drying shed, but that's gonna need to wait until I get higher priority stuff done.  I had planned to buy a piece of land and build everything from scratch, but this property turned up and with the house (2010) and barn (2006) it gets me closer to the finish line and shortens the timeline quite a bit. 

Easy enough to modify the porch and make it part of the interior space, but I'm losing a bit lateral bracing. Poles are in the ground, so may be ok.

Anyway, always good to hear the thoughts from the forumites. Lots of creative thinking here on FF.

[btulloh]

This is the entire property, more or less. The house is in the open area you see in the woods. 



 

[Don P]

Maybe have rigid steel post and beam frames ~16' long to fit in the main wall between posts 1&3 and cut off post #2 to sit on it. Then repeat.  That would "fix" the lateral concern and double the opening widths of the porch rooms. You could do that twice from each end and leave the existing double door entry and porch as is, inset.

[Walnut Beast]

That's Awesome! Very nice place with a long drive. My style. I see now why you want to enclose it. 

[LeeB]

I was thinking the same as Don.

[btulloh]

Excellent suggestion, Don P! 16' would be a more useful distance between the poles, take care of the bracing.  Sixteen feet would give a lot more options for how to use the increased space.  

The woman that built this place is a vet, and was going to set up her own practice here - that's why it looks like a horse barn. She planned to have an office, tack room, storage, and bathroom in the center, machinery maintenance area at one end, and a couple hourse stalls and treatmnt area at the other end.  Nice concrete floor for about 60% of the space now, stone dust and base for the stall area.  She never built out the interior, so other than some plumbing stubs and anchors it's a blank canvas. Just have to get the rest of the floor poured. Add the light and electrical I need, some air plumbing, etc., etc. Might as well capture that extra porch space and make it part of the interior at the same time.  

So it looks like a horse barn now, but for me it's a utility building.  Better than starting from scratch with the material supply issues these days.

Thanks for that suggestion- takes care of the bracing and the narrow bays at the same time. 

[Southside]

If you leave it as is you could put a lot of chickens in the main part and they would enjoy the porch area to sun themselves.   :D  Where is the lot? 

[btulloh]

Powhatan. Just off 522 about 1 mile north of 60 - 3 miles from the courthouse. Pretty convenient location.  Fifteen miles west of my current place.  

[Southside]

That's a nice area, glad you found it. 

[btulloh]

Yeah, me too.  Been looking for eighteen months. Would have been easier if I went further out like Amelia CH area but decided I need/wanted to stay closer in. As you know, the market is crazy around here and that hasn't changed much lately. Nice thing about the area around my new place is that it is already what it is gonna be and no chance of further development or higher density in the future. The general neighborhood looks like people like me, running from the explosion of development around my current place. 

[gspren]

I agree with leaving a 16-20' section at the middle door for a few chairs/benches, someday you'll get old and enjoy a break on the porch.

[btulloh]

Don P and Larry - I get the concept of the rigid stell p&b frames, but I'm not quite sure what that means specifically. Can you elaborate or link to an example. 

Before that suggestion came up I was thinking about Don P's flying buttresses from another thread. lol  Something from the Gothic cathedral era would add a new visual element to the outside ends. 

Great suggestions on the inset double doors.  Hadn't thought of that.  Even though that porch faces almost due north it would be a good thing.  

[Don P]

I can sketch it 2 ways in my mind at the moment but would run it by an engineer. The first path I would take is a visit to your local fab shop. I can give you my ideas or you can leave it as a word puzzle and let him find a third better way but he probably has an engineer he works well with. That does lock it into steel where my guy or an independent engineer might find a wood solution or steel... but in my mind for a shop, size steel beams for a trolly and chainfall.

I can also clearly remember having an engineer design steel per my request. having the shop fab it all piecemeal, giving him no input (I'm good, right  :) When he understood what I was doing he showed me a better way and his engineer had done so many it would have cost about half.

It does look like you can save the existing wall panels and just move them out and add endwall panels. 

[btulloh]

Gotcha.  Thanks.  You've put me on the right path.  I've got some architectural/engineering help lined up for some things I want to do on the house anyway.  Throwing this into the mix will work I'm sure.  Not really a complicated problem, but important to get it right.  May have to submit this to the county for approval, and insurance companies are mighty stringent these days too.

Carrying the roof load is pretty straightforward, but the bracing is what I'm scratching my head over.  I guess it's as simple as adding the proper corner braces to the metal work.  The height is adequate to have some corner braces without creating head bangers.  The posts are 12 ft, minus the width of the usual 2x12 sandwich.  Will end up a bit low for the a trolley hoist, but at some point it will get used to lift something, cause that's the way those things play out.

I've been thinking about a beam for a trolley hoist but haven't come up with a place I want to put the steel post that would need to be in the middle of the floor somewhere.  Might settle for a jib boom or something.  Also thinking that the two-post lift I want to put in can help me out there, or use the forklift.  It's nice to have an existing building to start from,  but starting from scratch would have given me the ability to design in some of this stuff from the beginning. It'll all work out in the end.  At least there's a separate 200 amp power feed to this building, and that should work fine for me.

There's three steel suppliers here that I use on a regular basis and all are good at fabbing and such.  Looks like it can all get worked out.  But I'm still liking that flying buttress idea, and some Gothic elements would be fun (lol) even though out of place visually.

Thanks for putting me on the right track -