Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Barns
I was really looking for a book that can give you ideas of how to remodel your barn in different climates.We recently purchased a new home in Oregon and put all of our machinery in the pole barn.Well, the machinery is starting to rust.So I bought a bunch of these "Barn" books thinking that I could find some ideas of how to insulate our barn.No such luck.However, this book is pretty nice. ... Read more

Book Description
The contemporary reawakening of interest in the historic folk buildings of North America has made us see old barns with new eyes, even as many of these simple, dignified structures vanish from the landscape.With spectacular full-color photographs, The Ultimate Book of Historic Barns is a fascinating pictorial essay into the history, geography, symbolism, ethnic roots, design and technology, and lore and legend of these vernacular buildings - - the focal point of the family farm when agriculture was a way of life for most people. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Review
This is a beautiful book.I liked one I already had so much, I bought this one as a gift. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

American Barns and Covered Bridges
A great book if you are into bridges ... Read more

Book Description
SMALL BARN PLANS FOR OWNER-BUILDERS is a both a book of barn plans and an owner-builder guide to managing your own barn building project in just four easy steps.

First step...learn how to design your own barn or adapt one of the 12 barn plans in the book.

Step 2...Estimate the cost of your barn and get competitive bids and save thousands of dollars.

Step 3...Learn how to manage your building project like a pro to save time and money. The book includes checklists and schedules to make it easy.

Last step...learn how to successfully work with subcontractors and suppliers to save up to 20%!

SMALL BARN PLANS FOR OWNER-BUILDERS includes professional construction plans, including floor plans, elevations, cross-sections, floor framing plans, roof framing plans,structural details and a cupola plan for 12 popular barn plans.

There are six gable-roofed barn plans, ranging from a 300 square foot "backyard barn" to a 1500 square foot six stall horse barn. Most have full lofts. The book also includes 4 gambrel-roofed barns, from 384 to 864 square feet, with multi-purpose floor plans and full second-story lofts. Two monitor-roofed barns are also included. The smaller is 864 square feet, plus a 400 square foot loft. The larger has 1296 square feet, plus a 600 square foot loft for storage or living space. Many of these barns have been built as affordable "barnhouses". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Small Barns Book
It was a good book to prepare for a small barn building project.

Not what was expected
Only basic info on planning a project and included plans are just a teaser to get you to purchase complete plans. There are much better general barn/shed books.

Small Barn Plans
It's marginally useful with hand drawn, black & white diagrams. You do get a sense of what building a horse barn or shed is all about. There are other reference books out there that deal with the subject in a more polished way though.

Small Barn Plans for Owner-Builders
I found this book to be an excellent source of information.It has greatly helped me do the planning for the construction of my barn.

not necessarily what the cover says...
The cover bills it as 'complete' plans for 12 different barns- actually, to get complete plans that would be needed to get building permitdo construction or buy materials, you have to order a set form the authors website. The book has nice practical ideas about working with subcontactors, and the designs and sources are quite useful. ... Read more

Book Description
All-colour photos chronicle the architectural beauty of barns from New England to California, and from the Southeast to the Pacific Northwest. Explanations of architectural design, construction methods and uses are illustrated with brilliant photos depicting structures designed for every conceivable agrarian purpose. ... Read more

Book Description
A magnificant book of full-color photographs and text show the history, architecture, and beauty of the barn. BARN is a celebration of an ancient symbol of shelter and harvest, with more than two hundred full-color photographs and an informed text by two expert practitioners of the art and craft of barn restoration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Best Ever Barn Book
Endersby and fellow authors, using an intelligent combination of pictures, drawings, and text to successfully depict both finished buildings and structural detail, have written the definitive book on barns.They trace the lineage of American barns from their European roots in a lively, readable, informative format.In addition to it's functional qualities, the book is quite handsome, a stunning addition to the library of anyone who likes barns.Quite simply, this is the best book on barns I have ever seen.

Barn, the art of a working building
This book is truely an inspiration... the images and descriptions will bring great memories of Barns to your mind, will bring tears to your eyes if you spent childhood fantasies in "the barn", and might inspireyou to save, build, or restore a barn someday...thank you Elric,Alexander , and David, whoever and wherever you are for presenting such awork...It stays on the table, within easy reach... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Living Barns:How to Find & Restore a Barn of Your Own
This book is informative and offers some good advice.The photos are encouraging and nice to look at.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in converting the wonderful open space of a barn into a residence or use commercially.

Thank you,

Cheryl Erb ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This Book Covers It All
From easements to structural renovation, this book covers all the pitfalls and joys of building your own barn house-- either from scratch or renovation.The author uses actual case histories to show the reader how it actually goes for the intrepid who dare to dream of a big ole barn house... which I do...someday... ... Read more

Book Description
If barns could talk ... As icons of American history, barnshave a lot to tell us about our country and its rural roots. A strikingphotographic tribute to historic barns of the West, Barn in theU.S.A. reveals the fascinating stories behind these landmarks. Relivethe showdown at the O.K. Corral, visit Will Rogers's stables, and find outwhy barns are red, all within the pages of this beautiful book.

Barn in the U.S.A. contains photographs and historical informationon over 40 bars that are located in California, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico,Arizona, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado.

Additional information regarding barn architecture, styles, preservationand the Barn Again! program is also included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Best barn book!
Now I know why barns are red.Why they are shaped that way.Why a barn raising was a big celebration in rural America.This beautifully illustrated book tells about Will Rogers' barn, Leland Stanford's barn, the infamous O.K. Coral, and other historical and interesting facts about barns. And as they are disappearing fast, it's good to have such a book.
Richard Proctor
Past-President,
Conference of CA Historical Societies

A lovely acquisition.
Barn lovers and any interested in barns old and new will find this a lovely survey of historic barns of the West. Landmark structures, their appearance in notable classic films, and details on both architecture and history compliment full-page color photos of the barns in their current settings. Any with an affection for old-time structures in general and barns in particular will find BARN IN THE USA a lovely acquisition.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Great book for barn lovers and preservationists alike!
This is the FIRST barn book to focus on the eleven Western states. Great stories and wonderful photographs.

The stories give a nice background on each barn its link to local history.

A must have book for Western history buffs, preservationists, and barn lovers. You will be very pleased with this book! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

If I had only known.....
This field guide has what I consider to be soso black and white photos and drawings of each type of barn and supporting structures. If you are looking for accurate information on a style of barn and where it may be located this is the book for you.I would perfer better quality photo's and some color. Rather boring presentation!

Fantastic Book on Barns!
For what I wanted the book for it is a fantastic resourse.I build model barns and covered bridges.This book has not only given me new ideas but also a history behind them.Love the book.

Frustratingly brief presentation
While the book presents numerous types of agricultural buildings from all over the U.S., it doesn't go into any sort of detail about any of them, making it of limited reference use. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (5)

Superb history and nostalgia
Eric Sloane is known to many of us who love traditional country things as the superb and prolific American artist and author who gave us books with good words and even better drawings. Sloane was an accidental historian of that era of American life when agriculture was king. I cherish my copies of his A Museum of Early American Tools and A Reverence For Wood.

The Age of Barns was first published in 1967. I saw this 2001 version lying on a table in a friend's house and begged to borrow it. The sub-title is An Illustrated Review of Classic Barn Styles and Construction. It is more than that as it also shows silos, root cellars, springhouses, sugarhouses, corn cribs and smoke houses. Also shown are tools of barn builders, construction methods, types of ventilation systems and even hinge design.

Sloane shows the evolution of this most important structure with examples large and small and from many places. Medieval, English, German, American barns. Small and large log barns. The Appalachian overhung-loft barn built on two cribs, decorated Pennsylvania barns, a Georgia barn, a Maine barn, a Tennessee saltbox barn. Pent roofs, gambrel roofs, extended bays, threshing bays. Connecting barns, built so the farmer could do a winter day's chores without going outside.

I have known two barns intimately. The barn on our Wisconsin farm was a classic two-story bank barn built of stone on the lower level with hand-hewn posts and beams above, a cupola topping it off. The farmer whose death allowed my parents to buy the farm had been an alfalfa producer so the barn had huge mows that were filled both from the outside using a hay hook and from the inside where teams and wagons were taken straight in and through. The dairy herd was housed in the lower section next to the sixteen-foot silo. I pulled a lot of, um, teats in that barn.

The humble hillbilly barn at Heartwood in Missouri has two sections separated by a drive-through. In barns this design is called double-crib; in houses it is called a dog-trot. The construction is of hewn oak logs with half-dovetail corners. The logs are held off the ground only with loose stones, so early deterioration was inevitable. When the barn was still in pretty good shape we took a family photo one Fourth of July. My cousin and I hung the huge American flag that was hand-sewn by a grandmother for Lincoln's inauguration and we all posed in front of it on the ground.

Born in 1905, Eric Sloane died in 1985, walking to a luncheon in his honor celebrating his memoir, Eighty: An American Souvenir. His fine books will live on long after him, a legacy of focus and craftsmanship.

A loving eye for detail
Sloane's books capture the romanticism of the past better than any picture books, and that is certainly true for his An Age of Barns.The beautiful line drawings range from evocative perspectives to working sections, giving you a good idea of how these barns worked.There are Shaker round barns, traditional gambrel barns, Amish barn raisings and a wide variety of outbuildings associated with the early American farmstead.He lovingly focuses on hinge details, stairs and ventilation openings.Sloane's eye never missed a detail, and for anyone who loves old barns this is the book to get.

Nice book, but not Sloane's best
This has some interesting history of early barns, especially those of New England.Drawings are well done, as usual.If you are interested in barns west of the Mississippi look elsewhere.

I have a barn
and I understand that barn so much better now that I have read this book.Sloane gives a brief overview of the history of barns, regional types of barns, and even the tools to raise a barn.A lovely book.

Eric Sloane-The Master Illustrator of Rural America
When Eric Sloane wrote this book in the 1950's, the United States had already made the transition from being an agricultural nation into an industrial society.Fortunately, there were still plenty of examples of America's rural past scattered along the backroads and other forgotten areas of the nation's countryside.Sloane spent many years, seeking out these historic relics so that he could study and sketch them.The result is whole series of books that chronicle America's historic material culture.This book focuses on barns.

What makes an Eric Sloane book so unforgetable are the black and white sketches.If you are a visual learner who believes a good drawing is worth a thousand words, Eric Sloane is the author for you. By no means is this an academic study of the different barn styles that existed in the United States.Instead this book is a collection of beautiful drawings that can help the reader understand how barns were built and what they were used for.This is a magical book.If you like it, you will have many hours of pleasure seeking out and reading Eric Sloane's other books.Highly recommended. A great value.
... Read more

Book Description
A complete guide to great backyard buildings with ninety four designs of barns, stables, garages, sheds and garden structures; plans that you can purchase directly from their designers; a directory of hard-to-find building products, guide books, kits, timber frames and prefab buildings; and good advice on site planning and construction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

OUT OF STOCK
YOU DID NOT SEND ME THIS BOOK. THIS IS THE ONE I REALLY WANTED. I GOT A NOTICE TELLING ME IT WAS OUT OF STOCK.

INSTEAD, WHEN I WAS TRYING TO ORDER THIS, YOUR CROSS-SELLING SYSTEM SOLD ME ON A TWO FOR ONE DEAL....

THE BOOK I ACTUALLY GOT WAS OKAY, GOOD FOR GENERAL CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BUT NOT THE CONCEPT/DESIGN INFO I WAS LOOKING FOR.

the ultimate source book
If you are looking for plans for barn construction, this is the ultimate source book.It also includes sources for everything from stables and garages to sheds and playhouses.A helpful bookbefore beginninga building project.

Great start for ideas
Definately designed to get you started with ideas for a small countryhome. The best part of the book is the references to dealers and builders.

Just What I Was Looking For
This book was just what I was looking for to find plans for a horse barn. It's a resource tool, not a picture book. It would be useful to someone who knows what size and type of structure they want to build and don't knowwhere to find the plans. The authors give a good synopsis of the framingoptions that a homeowner has when considering building, and pros and consof each. Also, I reccommend reading the paragraphs about laying out yourfarmstead.

A House-Plan Catalog for Barns!
Clever idea! There are 400+ house plan catalogs on Amazon.com - just this one on barns. Pretty, Old-timey barns, fair prices for blueprints, nice directory, fun to read. A good buy! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Omniubus barn book
This is the ultimate compendium of barn information. As a writer of a published barn book myself (Barn in the USA), I have seen my share of similar works. Most, however, fall short by showcasing old barns withoutplacing them in context, or telling you more than you want to know about architectural considerations. Randy Leffingwell's book covers the historical and practical aspects of these rural structures,also presenting beautiful images without turning the book into a beauty contest. It is a treasure for historians and barnlovers alike.

Outstanding
As usual Randy's books are tops. His photography, sidebars and careful attention to details are unsurpassed. You can almost hear the hammers falling in the barn raising chapters.Recommended to all lovers of the vanishing scene. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Barns are the enduring symbols of a vibrant rural tradition as well as the heart and soul of a new generation of imaginative country houses.Architects are now using and rethinking these alluring and escapist structures, employing design principles that ensure they continue to complement the natural landscape in which they are set. Barns examines the architecture and design of barn conversions and a new generation of contemporary barn houses and illustrates a wide variety of ways to approach such spaces. Each chapter focuses on a key theme -- Landscape, Architecture, Materials, Light, Open Spaces and Private Spaces -- and features detailed case studies. All of the locations are part of a new wave of conversions or new-builds, spurred on by the growing exodus of city dwellers to the countryside.

The country equivalent of the urban loft, barns offer similar opportunities for open-plan flexible living. The open spaces and high ceilings give them a fluidity that allows multifunctional spaces for eating, relaxing and entertaining, making them the home of choice for those wanting to combine rural traditions and natural landscape with new architecture and unconventional layouts. As well as celebrating the new innovations in dividing and ordering space and experimenting with unexpected materials within such traditional structures, Barns also explores the attractions of vernacular architecture that encourages so many architects and homeowners to look again at the traditional barn materials like thatch, wood, mud and straw.

Customer Reviews (4)

I hated this book
If you have an old barn and want to get some ideas and inspiration for making a lovely living space without sacrificing the integrity and charm of the original, this book is not for you.I wish I had seen the review that appears before mine before I bought it.Soulless says it all.And most of the barns pictured are in Europe, to boot, except for one in Charlottesville that is so over the top, I thought I was looking at a cardboard model at first. This would be a great book if you have an airplane hangar you want to convert, but spare the barns.

Barns: Living in Converted and Reinvented Spaces
Lovely pictures of completely souless houses. Almost without fail, the buildings depicted started as gorgeous rustic barns, were stripped of every bit of character (with the exception of some beam-work), and populated with cold modern furniture. There is no warmth, character, coziness, or sense of home in any of them. They are carefully sanitized, and devoid of any sense of history. I can assure you that if I get to do a barn conversion, it would look nothing like any of the barns in this book. This book is inspirational--it tells me what NOT to do.

Renovation
Excellent - very informative but not too 'interior designed'!
My son is doing up an old house in Michigan and together we found some very good and sensible ideas to think about.

Barns Living in Converted and Reinvented Spaces
Good book overall if your intentions are to learn what architects and builders have done to old barns in converting them into modern and contemporary homes. Or a modern day interpretation of old barn design using todays style and building practices. Thankfully for most of the barn renovations mentioned, the authors did a good job in marrying the fine attributes that the old buildings possess with the modern styles and comforts that is required to make them habitable. All the pictures are exquisite, sharp and in good detail. I found the book an excellent idea source for my own pending barn renovation. ... Read more

Book Description
A pictoral volume of not only old time barns of all shapes and sizes, but also a few pages each of windmills, bridges, outhouses, odd mail boxes, stores, places of worship, and schoolhouses. ... Read more

Book Description
The quintessential New England barn -- photogenic, full of character, and framed by flaming autumn foliage -- is an endangered species. Of some 30,000 barns in Vermont alone, nearly a thousand a year are lost to fire, collapse, or bulldozers. Thomas Durant Visser's field guide to the barns, silos, sugar houses, granaries, tobacco barns, and potato houses of New England is an attempt to document not just their structure but their traditions and innovations before the surviving architectural evidence of this rich rural heritage is lost forever.

A recognized authority on historic barn preservation, Visser has combed the six-state region for representative barns and outbuildings, and 200 of his photographs are reproduced here. The text, which includes accounts from 18th- and 19th-century observers, describes key architectural characteristics, historic uses, and geographic distribution as well as specific features like timbers and frames, sheathings, doors, and cupolas. From English barns to bank barns, from ice houses to outhouses, these irreplaceable assets, Visser writes, "linger as vulnerable survivors of the past. Yet before these buildings vanish, each has a story to tell." Travelers, residents, and scholars alike will find Visser's text invaluable in uncovering, understanding, and appreciating the stories inherent in these dwindling cultural artifacts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Where Is Southern New England?
Despite many mistakes in the layout and composition of this little book, the author has done an admirable job of researching and presenting a dauntingly diverse subject, except for the inadequate photography.One imagines him spending many hours taking and cataloguing and captioning the numerous photos, which are essential to understanding the subject and its details.Too often, however, the camera is too far away or the photos are reduced to such small size that the reader comes away with an impression, rather than a clear idea.It's evident the book suffersfrom budgetary constraints, and in this instance those constraints have hurt badly.
A final complaint -- the title is misleading.Despite the inclusion of a few Connecticut tobacco barns, this is a guide to NORTHERN New England barns.Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine barns are well represented.

Old Barn Owner
Having just purchased an old barn, I found precious few resources to assist in gleaning a history.Visser's book was concise, informative, and a pleasure to read.It provides valuable insight to the development of agricultural styles, and valuable clues to dating the agrarian landscape.Excellent source.

Excellent as a reference work or as a handy field guide.
The following is an excerpt from a review in Vernacular Architecture Newsletter, Feb. 1999.

The outbuildings of rural dwellings havecustomarily received less attention than the dwellings themselves.Thefields of architectural history and historic preservation have long focusedon dwellings, for such reasons as their sheer abundance and the fact thatthey may have been repositories of the fanciest and trendiest architecturaldetail.But visitors to rural areas will often find that a farmstead'sensemble of outbuildings may overshadow the dwelling in size, number, orvisual prominence.The outbuildings reflect past activities of people andanimals, and connect the dwelling to the system of fields, fences,driveways, and other farmscape elements.

Thomas D. Visser, AssociateProfessor and Interim Director of the Historic Preservation Program at theUniversity of Vermont, recognizes that barns and other outbuildings are farmore important than as mere picturesque elements of the rural landscape. From the massive barn to the lowly privy, "each has a story totell."In his Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings,Visser provides "clues for deciphering the many layers of historyspread over the rural landscape... to help observers... realize thewonderful insights that can spring from an understanding of the evolutionof our rural heritage."

Visser's book may be used two ways, as areference book and as a handy, portable field guide.It stands alone as agood concise history of New England farm buildings with an understandableconcentration on barns, the most necessary structure of a farmstead otherthan the dwelling. The specific fieldwork for this volume took two yearsand was concentrated in areas preselected for their relevance.Thefieldwork not only made possible this excellent guide to identifying,understanding, and appreciating farm buildings, but recorded a dwindlingcultural resource.Visser has for years encouraged the preservation ofbarns, building interest among their owners.This book, it is hoped, byincreasing awareness of these often neglected structures, will advance thecause of their preservation.

The Field Guide to New England Barns andFarm Buildings will prove informative and entertaining to a wide audience,from agricultural historians to New England residents who haven't trulyappreciated the value of farm buildings as cultural resources. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Spend your money elsewhere
Since I own a barn and I want to convert it into a house I've scrutinized every text and every picture in this book for ideas. I expected to be amazed and inspired at what architects and designers have done to the old barns but this book left me confused and disappointed. But if you are looking for a book to occupy your coffee table, at the bottom, then this is the book for you. I felt cheated because it lacked the overall quality and professionalism expected in a design book. It seems like this book was hastily put together with limited resources and wasn't carefully edited. For example several captions of the pictures are misplaced or don't correspond to any picture shown on the facing pages. The books title is, Old Barns-New Homes: A Showcase of Architectural Conversions. So why is there an entire chapter about new construction (Chapter 6)?The only thing they converted was a new metal warehouse into a house. About half of the pictures are worth printing and the rest of them are dark, grainy, reused or just plain confusing. I'd expect old before pictures to be faulty but the after pictures should be clear and sharp. Cropping out a portion of previously used picture, then blowing it up to a bigger grainy picture andthe caption tells me to see the details left me feeling cheated. Or even the "cut and paste" picture on pg 108 looks cheap, what no photo-stitch? Confused about picture on page 19? Turn the book sideways.

A must read for barn lovers....
I was enchanted with this fascinating book on barn conversions. Barns are great relics from our past, conveying a sense of history, but many have been ruined by weather, time, and neglect. I didn't realize how many creative architects and owners have made barns useful for both residential and commercial use through renovation and restoration. The intrinsic character of these old barns brings an integrity and charm rarely seen in new construction. In many gorgeous illustrations, Rooney describes the history of barns, their adornment (who knew that it was all because of a 9th century pope that there are so many roosters on weathervanes?), and their use as gorgeous residences and fascinating commercial and establishments - including an architectural office, inns, and even a funeral chapel. One entrepreneur even used several to develop an office complex. If you love barns and if you like to see the past preserved in the present, you will love this book.

A fantastic trip through beautiful barns, both old and new!
I must confess that I have always harbored a deep love of barns; maybe it simply out of a longing for a simpler time, and all that farms and their barns represent, or maybe because I am a habitual packrat and I'd love to have all that storage!Regardless of the reason, when I saw this book as soon-to-be-released, I got in touch with the publisher and was able to see an advance copy.The photographs took my breath away, and the wide array of barns and geographical regions of the USA that it showcased really drove home that these historic buildings not only need to be preserved, but that in doing so, we can truly enrich our architectural lexicon.It features every kind of barn known to man, from round barns and dairy barns to onion and tobacco barns, all of which have been loving reclaimed and restored into warm and inviting spaces for a new generation.This book should not only graxe your coffee table, it should be read cover to cover by anybody with a love for historic structures and Americana. ... Read more