Dobbin LS-42002

Photo Tour Of A Finished Dobbin

These are photographs of a Dobbin that has been built, not renderings. The loft is the part worth studying — a second floor at 635 square feet is hard to judge from a plan and obvious the moment you see it.

The Dobbin Floor Plan And Elevations

The Dobbin LS-42002 is a two-story barndominium with 2,191 heated square feet — 1,556 on the first floor and 635 on the second — on a footprint of 74 feet 9½ inches by 44 feet 2 inches. Three bedrooms, a loft, a mudroom, an open-concept main living area and a storage area. Nine-foot first-floor ceilings, concrete floor, stick-frame construction, an 8:12 main roof pitch and an overall height of 25 feet 8 inches.

The garage is 650 square feet with room for two vehicles and built-in storage. Porch and patio add 435 square feet, bringing unheated area to 1,085 square feet and the whole structure to 3,276 square feet.

The upper floor is heated space, and that is worth understanding before you compare this to a plan with a bonus room. Those 635 square feet sit inside the 2,191 heated total, so the loft is conditioned year-round. That makes it usable as a second living area, an office or a third sleeping space in a way an unheated bonus room over a garage never is — and it also means you heat and cool it every month whether you use it or not.

What Does It Cost To Build A Dobbin?

Finished barndominiums generally run $65 to $160 per square foot. On 2,191 heated square feet that is roughly $142,000 to $351,000 before land, site preparation, well, septic and utilities. The 650 square foot garage and 435 square feet of porch and patio carry slab and roof on top of that, so budget for 3,276 square feet of structure rather than 2,191.

Going up rather than out has its own cost profile. You save foundation and roof area and you pay for stairs, a second-floor structural deck and framing at height. On a lot where you can build wide, building wide is usually cheaper. Kit shells run about $20 to $35 per square foot plus $10 to $15 to assemble, but confirm your supplier handles a two-story system before you assume that price applies.

Your local labor market and whether you general-contract yourself move the outcome more than any design decision. Get county-level bids. The plan set is $849.99.

Is The Dobbin Right For You?

The mudroom is the detail that makes this plan work day to day. On a two-story house with an attached-scale garage and 435 square feet of outdoor living, the transition space between outside and the main living area is what stops the house getting dirty. A lot of plans this size skip it. This one does not.

Stairs are not negotiable here. Roughly 29 percent of the heated space is upstairs and there is no single-level version of this plan. If mobility is a concern now, or you are building the last house you intend to own, this is the wrong plan and no modification changes that.

Three bedrooms with a 650 square foot two-car garage is a suburban ratio on a rural-sized footprint. If you want a workshop, this is not it — 650 square feet is parking and storage, not fabrication space. Plans in this catalog that carry a real shop start at roughly triple that.

Where it is straightforwardly strong: nine-foot ceilings on a 1,556 square foot main floor with an open plan live large; an 8:12 pitch at 25 feet 8 inches gives the building genuine proportion rather than the squat look a shallow pitch produces at this width; and a loft, mudroom and dedicated storage area in one plan is a lot of practical room-count for 2,191 square feet.

Dobbin LS-42002 FAQ