In this article and video, we are looking at 5 businesses you can start with the tools in the BarnGeek Barn Plans Library
Become a Barn Builder
The obvious one is this, you could build these. You could become a contractor and build these barns for people. You would have a very unique Niche that makes you unique from other contractors in the area.
Once you start building these and people love them, they’re going to tell their friends and you’re going to have to turn away customers.
It’s really nice to have Barns like this in your portfolio when you’re showing a customer what you can do for them. I know a lot of contractors starting out don’t have a portfolio built up, but you can quickly build a portfolio with our designs.
First build your own Barn, take pictures of it and show that to your client, or even better, invite them to visit your barn.
Then you can tell them, we’ve got this Barn that I’ve built personally so I’ve got the experience. Then you can show them our website and show them all the other barn designs you can build for them.
One caveat, we do ask, if you are going to do this. For every Barn you build that your customer has purchased a membership in our Barn Plans Library. That will help them understand the process a little bit better, they’ll be able to have access to the plans and our years of experience. So that they can be assured of a successful build, and you can rely on our experience to avoid costly mistakes.
Sell Lumber Packages
You could provide material to either contractors that are building these or homeowners in your area.
If you own a sawmill or even if you don’t own a sawmill. You could help people that do own a sawmill, but they don’t want to do the leg work of finding customers. You can go out and find the customers for them.
You can provide a service to local people that are looking for structures like this. Make sure you build a good relationship with some local suppliers of rough cut Lumber.
Barn Wedding Venue
Barn Weddings is a huge business! We have a lot of customers that build our Barns and rent them out for weddings for a very good profit. We had one in particular who built a 22×30 gambrel with lean to’s, it’s a fairly small barn. The couples used the barn as it backdrop, and they would put up a large tent for people to to sit in the shade, it was a semi-outdoor type of wedding.
That Barn Owner was able to make enough, that first year, that the next year he built another barn. It was a 40 x 84 Gambrel Pavilion, it was huge! It has lean two’s and hammer trusses in it.
It’s just a beautiful barn! That plan is available in the Barn Plans Library.
People really love that Barn! The last I checked he was getting $10k per weekend for that particular Barn! It has paid for itself many times over!
This is a huge opportunity for people that that want to earn a passive income on their own land with a building that they built. There are a lot of nuances to that so you’re going to have to do your research. You’re going to have to check your own local jurisdictions to figure out what’s allowed in your area.
Build a Small Shed Business
You can build a small shed business, there are shed plans in the Barn Plans library.
The shed business is huge! You could earn a great living easily, just building sheds. You could build the shed right on their site, or you can build the shed on your site and then deliver it to customer.
That does require some equipment investment, so you’re going to have to do some research, to figure out what kind of investment that would require.
Cabin Rentals
You could build some sheds on your property and use them as cabin rentals. Or you can build some of these Pavilions, enclose part of it and use it as a cabin with a porch.
You can rent those out on sites like Hip camp or Airbnb. These types of structures are hugely popular on those websites. Especially if you have a homestead where you have chickens or cows or sheep that people can sleep out there next to the pasture with the sheep or the cows. And get to interact with with nature and country living real close. People love that kind of thing.
You could build a pavilion, put a couple hammocks up or just allow people to pitch a tent. Use the pavilion as a kitchen structure. There are lots of different things you can do with these structures.
You Can Make Your Neighborhood more Resilient
I really want to encourage you guys to to create local economies and create local businesses that will help our society be more resilient. I think one of the biggest glaring issues that we’ve discovered since the the whole Covid thing is that our local economies are are kind of fragile.
We’ve gotten way too reliant on big suppliers of Lumber and big suppliers of food.
We really need to make that industry smaller have a smaller core. Where you know your butcher, you know your wood guy, you know your contractor. You know them personally you go to church with them, you do activities with them.
That is going to really make our local economies more resilient.
I know some of you are already doing stuff like this so comment below. I’d like to hear about it. It really encourages me to keep doing what I’m doing.
I look forward to hearing your stories about what you guys are able to do with the The Barn Geek plans. Join the barn Geeks group and post pictures I really enjoy seeing the things that people do with our plans.
There is an interest in NW Montana for greenhouses. Does the library contain plans either for greenhouses or structures that can be adapted for greenhouse use?
There are no greenhouse plans avalible in the Library. Someone crafty might be able to make a barn style greenhouse based off our plans.