Open-concept barndominium floor plans: how they work, pros and cons

An open-concept barndominium floor plan puts the kitchen, dining area and living room in one large shared room, with few or no walls between them, while the bedrooms, baths and utility rooms stay closed off. Barndominiums suit the idea because a simple one-story building with trusses that span the width can leave the main room free of interior bearing walls. You gain light, flexibility and easy conversation, and you give up some sound control, wall space for storage and simple heating and cooling.

A note on our plans. All BarndoVista homes draw the great room, kitchen and dining area as one room. What differs is the shape of that room, the ceiling over it and what surrounds it. A plan set costs $149, is unstamped and is drawn for conventional wood framing. Your local team completes structure, engineering and permits. Browse every floor plan.

What open concept means in a barndominium

Open concept is a layout choice, not a building type. A barndominium can have closed rooms, and an ordinary house can be wide open. In a barndo open floor plan, "open" means a great room: the living area, dining area and kitchen share one room, often under a vaulted ceiling. The bedrooms, baths and utility rooms sit in rooms of their own.

Many buyers want it. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) surveyed 3,247 recent and prospective buyers in summer 2020 for its What Home Buyers Really Want, 2021 Edition. In that survey, 79% wanted an open arrangement between the kitchen and the family room, and 85% between the kitchen and the dining room. Wanting it does not make it right for every household, so weigh the trade-offs below.

Pros and cons of an open floor plan

Most of the pros and cons come from one fact. With no walls, everything in the room shares the same air, sound and view.

What works well

• Shared light and views. Windows on any side of the great room light the whole room, not one corner of it.
• Flexible furniture. A dining table for a crowd, two sofas or an empty floor for kids all fit in the same room, because no wall decides where they go.
• Cooking and company together. The cook can talk with guests or keep an eye on the kids from the island.
• A roof that can stay free of interior bearing walls. The USDA Forest Products Laboratory notes that engineered trusses can span greater distances without intermediate support, which eliminates the need for interior load-carrying partitions. Your builder and engineer confirm it for the real plan. Four of our plans, including the Overlook, mark one interior bearing line on the plan, so check the one you like.

What to watch, and what helps

Furniture zones and sight lines

An open room needs zones, or it reads as one large hall. Decide where each zone starts before you buy a plan, and test it with your own furniture.

• Rugs under the dining table and the seating group mark each zone and soften sound.
• The back of a sofa makes a low edge for the living area without blocking the view.
• Separate lighting for each zone, such as pendants over the island and lamps by the sofas, keeps the room from feeling flat at night.
• A fireplace or wood stove gives the seating area a focal point.

Then trace three sight lines on the plan: from the front door, from the island and from the main seat on the sofa. From the door, what do guests see first, the view, the fireplace or the sink? From the island, can the cook see the door, the seating and the porch? From the sofa, how much of the kitchen shows? A plan can look balanced from above and feel different when you stand in it. Our layout guide suggests walking a typical day through a plan to test this.

The kitchen island

The island is the hinge of an open plan. It marks the edge of the kitchen, seats guests and steers traffic. NAHB's 2024 edition of What Home Buyers Really Want found a central island rated essential or desirable by 74% of buyers.

Designers check an island against the planning guidelines of the National Kitchen & Bath Association (NKBA). In its Kitchen Planning Guidelines with Access Standards:

• A walkway should be at least 36 in wide.
• A work aisle should be at least 42 in wide for one cook and 48 in for more than one.
• Behind island seats, allow at least 36 in for someone to edge past a seated diner and 44 in for people to walk past.
• Each seat needs a knee space 24 in wide, and 12 to 18 in deep depending on the counter height.

Those figures come from a version of the guidelines based on the 2015 model code. NKBA's current fifth edition is based on the 2024 model code, so ask your kitchen designer to check the island against it.

Our plans show the range. The Gathering Barn has island seating for 6 and dining for 10, with a butler's pantry in the plan. The Meadowlark has an island that seats the whole family, and a walk-in pantry keeps the counters clear.

Vaulted ceilings, exposed trusses and glass

A tall ceiling is the signature of many open plans, and it changes how the roof is built. Each BarndoVista plan notes that trusses, posts, beams and footings are sized by your builder's engineer for your site. The plan sets do not include structural design or member sizing.

• The roof frame. Trusses are engineered products. The truss supplier produces design drawings for your roof, and the code requires them to go to the building official and be approved before installation (R802.10.1). The code also says truss members may not be cut, notched, drilled, spliced or otherwise altered without a registered design professional's approval (R802.10.4), so do not count on notching one for a duct or a taller opening.
• Exposed trusses. The Meadowlark has a vaulted great room with exposed trusses. Ask your builder and engineer who designs the trusses you can see, and whether they carry the roof or sit under the roof framing for looks.
• Insulation and air sealing. A vaulted ceiling changes how the roof is insulated and sealed. For an unvented cathedral ceiling, the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America Solution Center says the design must provide either a very high degree of airtightness or a way to avoid condensation on cold surfaces. Minimum insulation values depend on your state and local code.
• Smoke alarms. The 2021 model code puts alarms in each bedroom, outside the sleeping areas and on each additional story. It also calls for one in a bedroom hallway and in a room open to it when that room's ceiling is 24 in or more higher than the hallway's (R314.3), and it keeps certain alarm types a set distance from a cooktop (R314.3.1). Our plan sets include an electrical, smoke and CO placement diagram, and your building department confirms what it requires.
• Lofts and two-story rooms. Open edges of a loft need a guard at least 36 in high wherever the drop is more than 30 in (R312.1). A two-story room adds volume, not floor area an appraiser can count: the ANSI Z765 measuring standard, which Fannie Mae's guidance follows, does not let an opening to the floor below be included in the reported square footage. Our 40x60 guide has a table of loft rules.
• Walls of glass. A glass gable, like the one on the Overlook, is the kind of element your engineer designs for your site.

Codes vary by place, and the section numbers above are from the 2021 model code. Your building department and engineer have the final say.

How our homes handle the great room

These 4 homes show the range. Each description comes from the home's own page.

For more, our small plans fit an open great room into a compact footprint, the two-story plans add a loft or upper floor, and the large plans stretch the same idea across a bigger home.

Questions to ask before you choose an open plan

1. Where does the weight of the roof go? Ask your builder and engineer whether the great room needs a beam or posts, and read the truss design drawings.
2. Where does the range hood duct leave the building? With an island cooktop and a vaulted ceiling, the duct may have a longer path to the outdoors.
3. Has anyone run a load calculation for the real ceiling height?
4. Where do the smoke alarms go, given the kitchen shares the room and the ceiling may be tall?
5. Where do coats, bags and boots land before they reach the great room?
6. Where does the TV go, and where does its sound go?
7. Which walls take the cabinets, shelves and art?
8. Do the clearances around the island meet the NKBA numbers above?

If the plan you like is almost right, your builder or drafter can change it from the CAD file. Our guide to customizing a plan explains what is simple and what needs an engineer, and our 3-bedroom plans are the largest group to compare.