Designing a House, the barn (pt. 3)

Although the kominka burned to the ground, its 120 year old barn remains. Way back when, it hosted the family’s cows and you will find the remnants of stalls, and a 2nd story hayloft. Right now it is packed with tools, things in storage, and just plain junk.

We plan to renovate it into an office and guest space by adding a small bathroom, making a proper floor, and building out walls and room where the cow stalls are now. The hayloft can be converted to a studio for me or a space for guests. For the past six years, we’ve had a separate building as an office and work space. It’s been invaluable to us and I am looking forward being able to have the same at 555. This renovation might also allow me to make the main house a little smaller, as we won’t need an office in the house itself.

I hadn’t actually measured the space, though. How much of an office would this be, anyway? Turns out, it’s quite a lot.  We measured it on Monday and learned a lot about the space. Vintage barns are not build on a 91 cm grid. Also, there were many repairs and changes over the years.

Regularising our measurements for the strict grid the CAD insists on, here is a rough plan of the future first floor:

With the hayloft included, but not the garage space, its about 80 square meters. That’s a large sized apartment in Tokyo. We’re good.

The hayloft is gorgeous, by the way. And there is at least one cute little bat living up there. I disturbed him when I climbed up to poke around.

That curved beam is a tree grown that way especially for this purpose. It’s just a little lower than my height, so I will have to ba careful not to hit myself on the head when I am working up here. The piles of junked furniture might yield some seating for the sunroom, or the office spaces. I am all about reusing things. We’ll see.

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Mediatinker, Kristen McQuillin, is an American-born resident of Japan since 1998. This blog chronicles her life, projects, thoughts, and small adventures.