‘Traian’ is a traditional farmhouse in a rural setting. The house has an attached building (originally a barn) which is currently arranged as 3 bunkrooms with a small WC/utility room. However, the rooms are small with low headroom which limits their practical use.
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Our client’s daughter and son-in-law, and their child are planning on moving in with them, and plan to change the layout of the barn to accommodate this.
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The proposal is to raise the roof of the barn by 700mm, allowing the first floor to be raised to give better headroom at ground floor. Once raised, the eaves and ridge of the barn will still be lower than those of the adjacent house, allowing this to remain the dominant building.
The proposed alterations will provide a large living room/study at ground floor and a sleeping deck in the loft for the client’s daughter and her family within the barn. The new living room will feature large opening windows to the garden, created by widening the existing openings, which will connect the room to the garden reflecting contemporary living styles.
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The alterations will be carried out sympathetically using local materials and those with as low an environmental impact where possible. The raised walls of the barn will be constructed in stone matching the existing building, and the roof will be covered in slate.
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The building, like many traditional buildings within Snowdonia National Park is positioned to be South facing. The heating within the redesigned space will use a biomass wood-burning stove. The South facing dormer windows and widened ground floor door will allow maximum use of natural lighting and will gather heat from the sun to reduce artificial lighting and heating requirements. The new windows and doors will be double glazed to provide energy efficiency and retention of heat.
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TRAIAN, Barn conversion
LLANFROTHEN