Start from a barndominium template
On Home, tap Use Template, pick the Barndominiums chip and choose one of five furnished plans. The loft and two-story plans open with both floors and the stairs; switch floors in the Floors panel, edit anything, and walk through the great room, the loft or the shop in 3D.
A barndominium is a home built in a metal or post-frame building, often with a shop or garage under the same roof. The plans tend to share a shape: an open great room under a tall vaulted ceiling, bedrooms split to either end, a big covered porch, a mudroom by the working door and, on larger shells, a loft or a shop. Plan sellers describe 1,200 to 2,000 sq ft with three bedrooms and two baths as the most common range for a primary home.
RoomSketch3D has five furnished barndominium templates in their own Barndominiums group of the template picker. Every one has a covered porch, real-size furniture and 10 ft ceilings in the ground-floor bedrooms and baths, and each opens with no Smart Flow Check issues. Four have a vaulted great room with exposed beams; the two-story keeps a flat 10 ft ceiling downstairs and puts its sloped ceilings upstairs. Two of them, the 40 × 60 with Loft and the Two-Story + RV Shop, are the first templates that open with two floors and the stairs between them.
This guide shows how to open one, how to move between floors, what to change first, and how to judge it in 3D: standing in the great room, looking down from the loft and walking out to the shop. It ends with what these plans are not: they are starting layouts for planning, not construction drawings.
What you'll need
- •A RoomSketch3D account on the web, iPhone, iPad or Android
- •About five minutes
Step by step
- 1
On Home, tap Use Template
On Home, under Start a new floor plan, tap Use Template (the purple tile, Pre-designed layouts). If you're in the editor, the house button at the top left takes you to Home. The New Floor Plan window opens on the template picker.
Use Template is the purple tile under Start a new floor plan. - 2
Tap the Barndominiums chip
The chips along the top filter the templates; each shows how many it holds. Tap Barndominiums · 5 (or type barndo in the search box). Each card shows a full-colour picture of the plan, its name and its outside size (wide side first); the two-floor plans add 2 floors:
Template Card size Beds / baths Floors Items (all floors) 30 × 40 Starter Barndominium 40′ × 30′ 2 / 2 1 54 40 × 50 Family Barndominium 50′ × 40′ 3 / 2.5 1 67 40 × 60 Shouse (Shop House) 60′ × 40′ 2 / 2 + shop 1 57 40 × 60 Barndominium with Loft 60′ × 40′ · 2 floors 3 / 2 2 71 Two-Story Barndominium + RV Shop 70′ × 40′ · 2 floors 3 / 2.5 + shop 2 80 A size search works too: 30x40 lists the starter, the shouse and the two-story plan (both have a 30 × 40 ft shop), and 40x60 the shouse and the loft plan. The template names and descriptions are in English in every language; the Barndominiums chip itself is translated.
Barndominiums · 5 shows the five barndo plans. - 3
Open the plan, check every floor, name it and tap Use this template
Tap a card to open the template's page: the plan, its size, the floor area, the number of floors, the item count and the description. The loft and two-story plans have a tab for each floor (Ground floor and Loft, or Ground floor and Upper floor): tap one to see that floor. The item count covers both floors (71 for the loft plan, 80 for the two-story). At the bottom, Name your design starts with the template's name; type your own (Our barndo, 40 × 60), then tap Use this template. The plan opens as a new design in your account under that name, with both floors and the stairs, and saves like any design. Tap ‹ All templates to look at another plan instead.
A tab for each floor; the count covers both. - 4
Switch floors on the loft and two-story plans
The loft and two-story plans open on the Ground floor. To go upstairs, open the floor picker at the top of the Floors panel (it reads Ground floor with an arrow) and tap Loft or Upper floor. The list is stacked top → bottom, as in the 3D view, and shows the Slab between floors (10 in). The pencil renames a floor, the arrows reorder it and Add floor adds another. The stairs are already in place and connect the two floors: UP on the ground floor, DN to Ground floor upstairs. Both floors are saved with the design. Close it, open it again from Home, and the loft or upper floor is still there.
The floor picker: Loft on top, Ground floor below, as they stack in 3D. - 5
Read the loft on the plan
On the Loft floor you see a 12 × 40 ft strip (480 sq ft): a TV area with a loveseat, a desk and chair, a daybed and bookshelves. The railing side faces the great room. The loft's other three edges sit inside the ground floor's tall outside walls, so on the plan they show as open edges, not walls: that's how the loft is built, with one set of 19 ft walls around both floors. The faded stair at the edge is the one coming up from below. The loft floor is 10 ft 10 in above the ground floor. Its ceiling follows the roof: 8 ft 2 in at the outside wall rising to 14 ft 10 in at the peak.
The Loft floor: open outer edges, the railing side and the stair arriving from below. - 6
The two-story plan's upper floor
On the Two-Story + RV Shop, Upper floor holds Bedrooms 2 and 3, a full bath, a landing and a 36 × 18 ft Bonus / Game Room with a pool table and a sectional. The game room's sliding glass door opens onto a 30 × 8 ft covered balcony (240 sq ft) over the front porch. Every upstairs room sits under the roof's slope: 8 ft at the walls, 14 ft 8 in at the peak. The shop isn't on this floor; it's a single tall space on the ground floor.
Upper floor of the two-story plan: bedrooms at the back, the game room over the porch. - 7
Change anything
A template is an ordinary plan once it's open. Drag an interior wall to make the great room wider or a bedroom bigger, and the room sizes update as you go. Tap a door or window to change its type or size, including the shop's garage doors (the shouse has two 12 × 12 ft doors; the two-story's RV door is 12 ft wide × 14 ft tall, with a 10 × 10 ft door beside it). Swap furniture from the catalog, recolour the floors, or select a vaulted ceiling to change its eave, ridge or beams (see Vaulted, cathedral and pyramid ceilings). Run Flow check after big changes: every plan starts at Flow check OK, so anything it flags afterwards came from the edit.
The two-story plan's ground floor: house on the left, the RV shop on the right. - 8
Open 3D and show both floors
Open the 3D view. It opens on the floor you're working on, and the Floors button at the top left says how many are showing (Floors · 1/2). Tap it and tap the hidden floor to show it as well (Floors · 2/2); the floor you're editing is marked ACTIVE. Tick Dollhouse to cut away the walls facing you and see into the rooms, and Ceiling to put the vaulted ceilings on (they start hidden so you can look in from above).
Both floors of the loft plan in Dollhouse view. - 9
Walk through: pick a floor, then a spot
Tap Walk through (the footsteps button, bottom right). A top-down view asks you to tap a room, or anywhere inside or outside, to stand there. On a two-floor plan a Ground floor / Loft (or Upper floor) switch sits at the bottom: choose the floor first, then tap where to stand. On a computer, move with W A S D, drag to look around, hold Shift to go faster and press Esc to leave; on a touch screen, use the round joystick at the bottom left. Exit walk-through takes you back.
Choose Ground floor or Loft at the bottom, then tap where to stand. - 10
Stand in the great room and look up
Stand at the living-room end of the great room and look toward the kitchen. On the loft plan the walls run up 19 ft to a cathedral ceiling that peaks at 25 ft 8 in, with rafters, a ridge beam and ties in reclaimed timber, and the loft's railing runs along above the kitchen. This is the view that tells you whether the room feels as big as you want, and whether the loft crowds it.
From the great room: beams overhead, the loft above the kitchen. - 11
Look down from the loft
Switch the picker to Loft, tap the loft and walk to the railing. Looking down you see the living area, the fireplace and the dining table, and you can judge the drop and the sight lines from upstairs.
From the loft: the fireplace and living area below. - 12
See the shop
On the Shouse, the shop is a 30 × 40 ft space with 14 ft walls rising to a 20 ft 8 in ridge, two 12 × 12 ft overhead doors, a pickup and an SUV, a workbench wall, a table saw, a lumber rack, tool chests and shelving. The mudroom / laundry door opens straight into it. On the Two-Story + RV Shop, the shop has 16 ft walls, the 12 × 14 RV door, a 10 × 10 truck door, a pickup, an ATV, a motorcycle and a riding mower. Shop floors are concrete.
The shouse shop: two overhead doors, two vehicles, the workbench wall. - 13
Walk outside
In the walk-through picker, tap the grass in front of the house to stand outside. From the yard you see the porch, the covered balcony on the two-story plan, and how big the shop doors are next to the house.
The two-story plan from the yard, with the truck door and the taller RV door.
Tips
Pick by shell size first
Barndos are usually named by the shell: a 30 × 40 is 1,200 sq ft, a 40 × 50 is 2,000 and a 40 × 60 is 2,400. Start from the template whose shell is closest to yours and resize from there; it's quicker than reshaping a smaller plan into a bigger one.
Check the low side of every vaulted room
The ceilings come down to 10 ft at the great-room walls (8 ft upstairs on the two-story, 8 ft 2 in at the loft's outside edge). Smart Flow Check warns when a tall piece won't fit under a sloped ceiling, so move bookcases and tall cabinets toward the middle of the room if it flags them.
Mark an RV with a rectangle
There's no RV model in the catalog, so the RV bay opens empty. To check clearances, place an item whose size you can type, such as a large rug, set it to the coach's length and width, then walk around it in 3D.
The shop is part of the house
On both shop plans the house and the shop are one floor plan, and the mudroom door joins them. Moving the dividing wall changes both at once, which is the quickest way to try a 40 × 30 / 40 × 30 split against more house and less shop.
Common mistakes
Thinking the loft didn't load
The template card's picture shows the ground floor, and the design opens on the ground floor too. The loft or upper floor is there: check it on the template's page with the Loft or Upper floor tab, and in the editor switch to it in the Floors panel.
Looking for the roof
The 3D view shows the vaulted ceilings, the wall heights and the gable ends, but not a roof surface, trusses or metal siding. The flat-looking top you see from outside is the ceiling. Roofs and steel frames are for your builder or engineer.
Trying to pick concrete for the shop floor
The shop floors start as concrete. The Flooring picker offers tile, hardwood and carpet for indoor rooms (concrete is an outdoor material there), so if you change a shop floor you can't pick concrete again; Undo puts it back.
Treating the plan as a build set
These are starting layouts for planning and visualizing. They don't include structure, framing, foundations, electrical or plumbing design, and local codes vary. Take your finished plan to your builder, designer or engineer.
Frequently asked questions
Where are the barndominium templates?
On Home, tap Use Template, then the Barndominiums chip. There are five: 30 × 40 Starter, 40 × 50 Family, 40 × 60 Shouse, 40 × 60 with Loft and Two-Story + RV Shop.
Why does the card show only one floor?
The card's picture is the ground floor, the floor the design opens on. Tap the card: the template's page has a tab for each floor and counts the items on both. The loft and two-story plans open with both floors and the stairs; switch floors in the Floors panel.
How do I go upstairs in the loft or two-story plan?
In the editor, open the floor picker at the top of the Floors panel and tap Loft or Upper floor. In the 3D walk-through, use the Ground floor / Loft (or Upper floor) switch in the picker before you tap where to stand.
How big are the shop doors?
The 40 × 60 Shouse has two 12 × 12 ft overhead doors in 14 ft walls. The Two-Story + RV Shop has a 12 ft wide × 14 ft tall RV door and a 10 × 10 ft door in 16 ft walls. Tap a door to change its size.
Does the RV shop come with an RV?
No. There's no RV model in the catalog, so the RV bay is empty. The shop has a pickup, an ATV, a motorcycle and a riding mower.
Can I change the plans?
Yes. Once open, a template is your own design: move or delete walls, resize rooms, change doors and windows, swap furniture, edit the vaulted ceilings or add a floor.
Are the template names translated?
The Barndominiums chip is translated into every app language. The template names and descriptions are in English for now.
Can I use these plans to build?
Use them to work out the layout you want and show it to people in 3D. They're not construction drawings: there's no structural, roof or permit detail, so your builder, designer or engineer turns the layout into a buildable set.
Sources
- Modern House Plan Ideas: Best Barndominium Floor Plans in 2026 — A plan publisher: "The 1,200–2,000 square foot range remains the most common for primary residences", described as "a proper 3-bed, 2-bath layout with a great room".
- Coast to Coast Carports: 40x60 Barndominium Planning Guide — A building seller: the most common 40x60 split is "40x30 living, 40x30 shop"; 10, 12, 14 and 16 ft walls "are all common".
- Hansen Pole Buildings: 40x60x21 Barndominium Kit — An example of a loft shell: the 21 ft kit includes a "40×36 lofted second floor".
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