[Torrin37]

If you had an unlimited budget, plenty of land and no problems with the planners  what would your dream barn be like?

Size?
Materials?
Internal fittings?

We're going to start off thinking of the ideal and then gradually scale it down to the possible!

[Julestools]

I built my little shed in '94... It started with a kit form barn, 30' x 45'. I then filled in all the sides (bar one bay) with low block walls up to 4' and 6"x1" boards to the roof With a roller door in the open bay. I've since built a 20' x 30' lean to on the south end of the shed and intend to extend the other end this year. Always build a bigger shed than you need because they soon get filled up with... whatever. I have an office and log burner in one end of the shed with a small loft above and an overhead gantry crane to help with lifting. In a couple of years i would like to put another lean to on the eastern side of the shed but i would have to remove some pear trees to do that. The original build cost £5000 but i have spent almost the same again extending and insulating the shed.... but it's worth it. I still need to upgrade the electric supply for the compressor and welder though

[SirDoolb]

It would look like a little castle. If I couldn't build with stone I'd build with timber. I saw a picture of a gate house in Scotland earlier today. It would look like that.
Enough room to sleep if I didn't make it home,  somewhere to cook, a small living space, somewhere to store produce.

Hang on, I'm moving in.

[Womble]

Depends what I was going to use it for.  If it was a workshop, I'd want a wood burner in the corner, really good lighting and separate benches for woodwork, metalwork, electronics etc.
 
If it was for lambing or calves, I'd want an easy-clean floor, automatic drinkers and post-holes for mounting hurdles to make lambing pens in all different shapes and sizes. Oh, and insulated tin and ventilation on the roof to prevent condensation.

[Fleecewife]

Mine would be a pre-existing stone or brick ancient barn, with ventilation slits (arrow slits) and a lovely pantile or slate roof.
Ha - this is exactly the barn we had when I was a child and I loved it.  It had a high roof so it fitted a mill and hoppers and you could climb up to sit on the beams.  You could also, if you were careful not to dislodge the rooftiles, climb up the outside of the roof and sit on the ridge, where no-one could get you (in the days before vertigo hit).
My brother has since converted the barn to a house 
 
It would need a concrete floor, easily washed down/pressure washed for when animals were in, or sweepable for feed sacks and hay/straw.  Double doors for access (ours had double doors on both sides, plus direct access to animal pens built in to one side).  Ours also had cute little niches built into the thickness of the walls, maybe for lanterns?
 
Our current barn cum workshop is stonebuilt but is a row of 2 converted houses and a cottage.  The roofs were taken off in the 50s and replaced with corrugated tin, which my husband has lined to prevent condensation.  Apart from the roof, it is quite attractive, even though the windows are blocked off and it's only a single storey, but nothing like an old East Anglian barn.  We also have a couple of storage barns, one of the roundy-roofed ubiquitous post war corrugated tin sheds for hay and an open-fronted pole barn for implements. There is a larger pole barn under construction for my wool crafts esp weaving at one end, a fleece and vehicle store at the other with what looks horribly like space for a microlight 
 
I wonder when a shed becomes a barn, and when a barn is just a shed?

[bazzais]

My ideal barn would be the same size as I have - but it would have a store person at one end where I could 'file' all the bits that are leftover for later and not on my floor.

[RobRob]

Has anyone built one out of straw bales ?