Alfredo and I are high school sweethearts. One day back in high school, he mentioned to me his dream of having a house with a wraparound porch. From that moment on, it became our shared dream. A decade later, we were married and expecting our first baby. We had been searching for a home for over a year, but we could not find the perfect one. Every place we looked at had something wrong with it (in our opinions), and we were starting to feel discouraged.
When we found out we were expecting, we kicked our search into high gear. We looked at houses up to four times a week throughout the entire pregnancy, but nothing ever felt right. We were exhausted from searching for so long and being disappointed every time we did not like a place. That is when we made the bold decision to start looking at land only.
We wanted to own acreage and build our dream home, but we never thought we would do it for our very first house. We knew which county in Texas we wanted to build in, but it also happened to be one of the more expensive counties for land in our area. We were looking for a minimum of 10 acres which would add up quickly. After looking at numerous places, we finally found 12 acres that we loved and at a price that was much less than anything we had previously looked at. It was full of trees and had a little stock tank already on it. It seemed like the perfect blank canvas to start our dream build.
By the time we found this land, we knew that we were not going to build a traditional home with a builder. We did not have the budget for a new build with everything we wanted. But Fredo knew that he could self-build our house for us and by doing so, save us a lot of money.
However, the only way it was going to be budget-friendly was if he built a barndominium. 1. Because Barndominiums are cheaper to build and 2. Alfredo is a welder and builds barns, fences, and gates for a living, so he already knew how to put up the steel frame, metal wall panels, and roof. And Fredo lives by the motto that ‘if someone can do something, so can he.’ He was confident he would be able to do an entire DIY barndominium build.
And the rest is history. We bought land and began building our self-built barndominium with that wraparound porch. We documented the journey on Instagram just as a scrapbook for us to look back on. But we grew a wonderful community of followers there and the documentation of our build journey became more than just for us. We branched out to TikTok and now we are here writing blogs. Raised in a Barndominium is officially a LLC and this blog is to share our journey of building a barndominium on a budget, educate you on the things we have learned along the way, and hopefully inspire you to take on a DIY Barndominium build of your own. And if you are not really wanting to take on such a large project, we have all the smaller DIY home projects to share with you as well.
At Raised in a Barndominium, we want to share our experience with you and provide home-building tips and advice to help you through the process. Whether you are going to self-build, self-contract, or hire a builder but do DIY projects, you will find all the information you need here. We know firsthand how overwhelming it can be to take on a DIY home build, but with the right resources and support, it is possible. When we started our build in February 2020, no one else was doing what we were. I would have devoured these types of blogs or an Instagram like ours and so I want to share our experience with you so you can learn from our mistakes. Some future blog topics include barndominium floor plans, barndominium designs, barndominium construction, barndominium cost, DIY home decor, DIY home projects, DIY home organization, DIY building tutorials, and pretty much everything we’ve learned over the last 3 years. So saddle-up and get ready and rarin’ to go. This blog is about to get a Texas-sized amount of DIY barndominium and home building information just for you!
3 Responses
It’s good to read your story of triumph over house hunting! House hunting can be brutal. I’m amazed at what all you guys are doing.
Thank you, my friend! House hunting was fun but I was excited that each and every house was finally “the one” only to be constantly let down. So glad that is behind us now!
My wife and i are currently looking for property. We want a barndo….2200-2400 sq ft., one story. But at a 350k-400k price tag, id rather get a modular and put more into the property. BUT…recently thought about getting a 40×60 shell with the wrap around we want…and figure oit how to contract it out myself. I work too much to do very much. But heard doing it this way can save nearly 1/2 the cost. Any advice? Company to purchase a shell from? How in the world to contract everything out…?