Oak Roof Trusses Required for Sympathetic Suffolk Barn Conversions

Oak By Design have been pleased to work alongside the Project Manager/Architect, Andrew James, on the conversion of 3 former, single storey barns in Suffolk. Andrew not only designs homes, he also manages, and plans the building works on site.

His clients owned a cluster of buildings situated in glorious countryside , they realised this would be the perfect place to live, so went down the route of converting the barns to residential. The third barn was to be converted into garage spaces for the 2 homes.

Andrew set about designing a home within the confines of the limited space. In this case, each of the homes would be under 100 square metres. They had to maintain certain elements of the barns whilst creating an efficient, workable home. Both barns would be very similar, and would be converted separately. The first conversion would be for one of the companies’ directors.

To create a feeling of space and height, Andrew designed the main living space with an open pitched roof. He wanted this room to have the wow factor. By having the roof timbers on show, and made of solid oak, this would do the trick!

Andrew spoke to Joanne in October, when the initial building work was in the early stages, and discussed the timber sizes for the roof. An oak ridge, together with purlins and 4 oak roof trusses would form the main part of the roof.

Joanne had recently supplied some very similar trusses, purlins and ridge to a local client and sent some photos for Andrew to look at and see the quality of the finish etc. The top of the king posts had been notched out to accept the ridge, and the principal rafters on the trusses were notched to accept the purlins. This was just the look Andrew was looking for.

A quotation was provided for 4 oak roof trusses, the timbers finished at 190mm x 190mm with a span of nearly 6 metres. A ridge, and 4 purlins made up the full roof timbers for the open living space of approx. 7.5 metres in length.

The quotation was accepted, and final drawings provided for confirmation.

They chose the Osmo Protection oil in Natural for the finish of the timbers.

Once the roof timbers were all made, photos were sent to Andrew for approval. A delivery date of mid-January was arranged with our local Pallet Track company, Celkom.

The delivery was made first thing in the morning, and Andrew sent Joanne photos of the timbers in position at lunchtime! Everything had literally ‘slotted into place’.

A few weeks later, Andrew was back in contact, ready for the second set of timbers for the second barn. These would be exactly the same as the first set. At the same time, he also requested 5 oak timbers to sit on the outside of the barn to frame the windows and doors. The upright timbers would be sat on a staddle stone and would have a shaped top detail, which would sit under the front of the roof. This can be seen on the photo below.

These were ordered alongside the second set of roof timbers and these were delivered to site in April.

About the time that these were delivered to site, the first barn home was nearly ready to move into.

Speaking to Andrew after the first barn was finished, he explained how he managed to get the living/dining/kitchen space, hall, storage, 2 bedrooms (one with en-suite shower room) a house bathroom and utility room, all into the space, whilst still keeping the home looking bright and airy.

When entering the house, it opens into the living space. Looking ahead, above the kitchen sink, is a window that looks out across the garden. To the right, a corridor runs full length down to one of the bedrooms. The corridor has full length windows which let the light stream in. To the left, in the corner of the space is the dining area. This is flooded in light from the windows on both the front and side elevation.

By opening the roof up, as opposed to having flat ceiling, and revealing the roof timbers, the room is spacious, and the oak roof trusses create interest, drama and definitely the wow factor!

Flat ceilings would have made the space very enclosed and contained.

Andrew described the installation of the oak roof trusses and roof timbers as pretty smooth! The air-dried oak roof trusses and roof timbers had all been dry fit together in our workshop, and had been sanded and oiled prior to being sent out for delivery. The full oak roof trusses (seen on the artic, ready to leave our yard, below) were lifted into place with a telehandler, and positioned on the building, together with the ridge timbers (supplied as 2 pieces and jointed over one of the trusses), and the rafters (supplied as 4 timbers, and again jointed above the one of the trusses) all before lunch!

Having plenty of storage is the key to a tidy, workable home and Andrew has provided plenty in this compact home.

The dining area consists of fitted bench seating which lift to provide ample storage space. The kitchen units are full height, again, providing plenty of kitchen storage.

Accessing the utility room is via a small corridor with full height storage cupboards on the left-hand side, and the master bedroom has a dressing area, complete with full height wardrobe space/storage.

The exterior of the home pays homage to the black barns of the local area. Black cladding, windows and doors provide a contemporary barn look. The oak posts add a lovely warm contrast against the black.

The clients, who provide groundworks, civils, tarmacking etc, provided the newly finished driveway shown on the photo below.

Andrew said the beautiful colour of the oak trusses brings an enormous amount of warmth to the home, as well as adding interest and drama – a double whammy!!