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	HOMEOWNERS NEWSLETTER	Spring 2001

	This Yankee Barn fit together perfectly on a tight site with strict covenants and gave the homeowners plenty of family living space now without feeling too big as a retirement home for just the two of them.

	To learn how you can design your own barn home, Order the Design Guide. The Yankee Barn Design Guide includes a three-ring binder with 175 pages of design ideas, color photographs, interviews with homeowners and custom plans.
	Within a small footprint constrained by site covenants, Susan and Art wanted their Yankee Barn to feel big with an open floor plan and plenty of room for family and hobbies. When Susan retired after 25 years as a pediatrician and Art changed careers from an internal medicine practice to writing medical software from home, the family could live anywhere. After visiting towns all over the United States, Susan and Art chose to live and become involved in a vibrant community nestled in the mountains of central Vermont. They found a hillside site and started planning their semi-retirement home. "We always liked post and beam homes," said Susan. "Because we knew we couldn’t be here when our house was being built, we decided a pre-built house was the answer. That way, we knew all the angles would be right, everything would be well-constructed before the house arrived on the site." (See Designer Notes:: A Perfect Kit.) So many of the pre-built homes have a modern, angular approach to the design. We wanted a traditional barn look to our house. Yankee Barn had the architectural style we wanted," said Art. "We also liked Yankee Barn’s use of reclaimed lumber to avoid the splitting and twisting of the beams we had seen when new lumber was used in other post and beam homes."
	After an initial visit to the Yankee Barn show home in Grantham, New Hampshire, Art invited an architect friend to visit the Yankee Barn shop. Susan and Art were not experienced builders and they wanted what Susan called, "an expert opinion" before making a final selection. "The architect was impressed with the building materials and with Yankee Barn’s techniques. He found the construction sound and the homes well engineered," said Art. "We were also impressed with the attention to detail including the detailed construction guide prepared by Yankee Barn for builders." "After we saw the care Yankee Barn put into the building of the house at the factory, working indoors, out of the weather, on a flat surface with jigs to get it right, we felt reassured. We knew when the package arrived on our site, assembly would be a cut and dry process with-out our being there." Once Susan and Art decided on Yankee Barn, they had the luxury of time to plan their home. With guidance and parameters from Yankee Barn, Susan and Art spent a couple years turning their design ideas over in a CAD program. "Using the CAD, we could see how the house would look from the inside. We could move the location of the windows or rotate the house a little to see the change in the view," said Art.
	"With no time pressure, Susan and Art used a CAD system to look at the design from various angles and make adjustments to the floor plan. Modifications in Yankee Barn floor plans were easily made to move the stairs back from the chimney to take advantage of a Scandinavian high temperature stove insert. They handed their ideas off to Bruce Parsons, one of the designers at Yankee Barn Homes. "Bruce trans-lated our ideas into plans and added a few alterations and suggestions that were helpful.It was a smooth process," said Susan. "We felt comfortable with Yankee Barn. They were receptive, open to our ideas, and easy to work with. They were flexible, accessible and responsive. "Everyone at Yankee Barn was helpful and supportive. We worked together to make it happen. We created what we wanted within the covenants we had on the land," said Susan. With a steep slope, setbacks, and height restrictions, the site was limiting. Their Yankee Barn was designed to meet their living space requirements and fit within the small footprint. After living in an older home with many small rooms, Susan and Art wanted a more open floor plan. This was to be their retirement home but needed to serve the needs of a family for a few more years. Susan and Art combined natural wood finishes with antique timbers, rough sawn and unstained to create a casual, informal look to their home. In the kitchen, Susan displays one of her craft projects, a hand-paineted floor cloth.
	Susan and Art designed their home to serve the immediate needs of a family with teenage children and the later desire for a retirement home with all the main living space on one level. With one child leaving for college and another still in high school, Susan and Art needed a house that worked for a family now, but wouldn’t be too large for just the two of them later. "A Yankee Barn looks a lot bigger than it actually is. We didn’t want to feel cramped. We wanted our living space on the first floor with plenty of room for our hobbies," said Susan who spins, weaves, knits and paints in the loft while Art plays keyboards in a separate room and works wood into useful items including kayaks in his workshop. "The post and beam gave us the ability to create a large Great Room with a cathedral ceiling.
	Because we could put the walls where we wanted, we could create a big feel without building a big house," said Art. "Plus, the Yankee Barn is incredibly tight. Even when it is blowing outside, there are no rattles or shakes, no noise." "Some people may want to hand off the design to someone else. It’s not our way. We are do-it-your-selfers," said Susan. "Yankee Barn allowed us total freedom and were extremely accommodating. They were happy to help us work within construction and site restrictions. They were flexible and eager to do what we wanted." "They helped us knock out all the details of the design. They also helped us find and interview builders. This was a big help," said Art. "Whenever there were any questions, they would take care of the unexpected details that come up. They are around for us. They stand by their product." With a first floor master bedroom and bath located at the end of a 52' Prairie Barn, Susan and Art have privacy from the bedrooms on the second floor and family activity in the living room.
	Barn Style Homes is an inspirational source of design ideas for today’s timber frame homes. Roland Sweet, Editor, Timber Homes Illustrated. The ultimate fantasy of living in a barn comes true with this volume of new home ideas. Turn your own dreams into a reality. Gale Steves, Editor, HOME magazine It is impossible to travel through the remarkable houses seen in the new book Barn Style Homes, without wanting one of these homes for yourself. Genevieve Fernandez, former Homebuilding & Decorating Editor, Good Housekeeping magazine Heralded as a must-have for anyone who owns or dreams of owning a timber frame home, the newly published Schiffer Design Book is an inspiring collection of thirty-seven Yankee Barns, featured inside and out. "I wanted to put together many of the images and floor plans we developed. We focused on the details right down to room dimensions, which we do not see in many other books," said Tony Hanslin, co-author and Yankee Barn Homes C E O . The collection of 275 photographs plus floor plans provide ideas for design, furnishing and decorating to inspire anyone who loves timber frames, from current Yankee Barn homeowners to those dreaming of owning their first, or their next. Books are available for $39.95 at your local bookstore. Yankee Barn Homes is pleased to offer the book on their website for a special discount of $29 plus shipping. Simply click here to order.

	Pre-built or "kit" homes mean different things to different people. For Susan and Art, pre-built meant reassurance that their home would be well constructed from quality materials, even when they couldn't be on hand to watch over the process. Each Yankee Barn "kit" includes the frame and panels built using quality materials and time-proven construction techniques. Inside the shop, all work is protected from weather conditions that can damage materials. Using well established construction procedures on a flat surface, crews work faster and more efficiently than on site. Here’s how it worked for Susan and Art: Pre-building in the Shop In a few weeks in the protected environment of the shop, Yankee Barn built what would have taken months on site. Craftsmen cut and notched Susan and Art’s frame from antique timbers. One crew framed and insulated the wall panels using 2x4 studs as in traditional "stick-built" construction, while another crew built the roof panels using special jigs. Windows, including the large roundtop window and other custom window units, were installed. The interior finish and exterior siding Susan and Art selected were installed to complete the panels. To assure quality control, panels are inspected by the in-house inspector, supervised by an outside, registered inspection agency. Shipping The frame, panels, trim and options were carefully wrapped and labeled for shipment by truck. Because Susan and Art’s site was so tight, shipments were split so only one truck arrived and unloaded at a time. Raising a Yankee Barn With the help of a Yankee Barn supervisor who has overseen hundreds of Yankee Barn raisings, the frame was put together and the panels were installed. Susan and Art’s Yankee Barn appeared from the packages in just over a week. Their home was just as they expected without being on hand to watch. Yankee Barn’s construction guide for homeowners and builders explains in more detail the quality materials and building techniques used to pre-build the perfect "kit" home. Call the office at 1-800-258-9786.
	The pictures taken of the Yankee Barn on Cranberry Island after the storm look rather frightening, but I’ve been assured that other than a bent metal chimney for the wood burning stove, the damage is cosmetic. These pictures prove how sturdy the Yankee Barn construction is. – Vicky and Chris
	Photographs: Suki Coughlin, Stylist: Paula McFarland ©2000 Yankee Barn Homes, Tony Hanslin, Chariman and CEO