I ‘m always kind of fascinated by barns that were converted into houses. Johanna Walters and her husband Brian Sweeney took what was a run-down show barn and boarding facility in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania, and turned it into a beautiful home for both themselves and their horses.
It was featured on an episode of HGTV’s You Live in What? On the show Johanna says that she rode horses out of this barn as a teenager, and she always wished someone would fix it up someday. “Who knew it would be us?”
Husband Brian Sweeney says, “It was in pretty bad shape when we came to it. It was pretty overwhelming at first.”
“Horses are a big part of our life and making sure the barn was just right was critical,” Brian says.
They removed the low beams in the barn’s ceiling to reveal these beautifully vaulted ones that were underneath:
They spent 3 years renovating it — gutting and renovating the stables, creating a kitchen, great room, and dining room on the first floor, and converting the upstairs hay loft into bedrooms.
The first floor has 13′ ceilings, and they wanted to make the spaces look warm and comfortable despite their large size.
The great room used to be additional horse stalls:
What was once the hay loft is now the second floor of their home with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. They left all the original barn beams where they were and designed the rooms around them.
I can’t even imagine how much work this must have been!
These are screenshots I took while watching the episode. For the full story and house tour, watch the video below or on HGTV.com (they run a short ad first, natch):
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