If the small shop community represents one end of the woodworking space spectrum, the converted barn represents the other. Jeff converted a 19th-century post-and-beam dairy barn on his New Hampshire property into a woodworking shop over the course of five years. The result is 2,400 square feet of clear-span floor space, 16-foot ceilings, 12 original barn windows providing north light, and the kind of atmosphere that makes visitors fall momentarily silent when they walk in.
The barn is not climate-controlled – the heating system is a 300,000 BTU propane unit heater that maintains the shop at 55°F in winter, which Jeff finds sufficient for most work. The original post-and-beam structure was carefully assessed before conversion: the main beams are hand-hewn white oak, 10×12 inches, as sound as the day they were cut. The barn boards on the exterior were replaced with new T1-11 siding but the interior boards were kept as shop wall cladding – French cleats mount directly to the 150-year-old barn board, which is harder and more stable than modern dimensional lumber.
The machine collection includes two table saws (a SawStop for primary production and a vintage Unisaw for ripping wide panels), a 20-inch Laguna planer, two 8-inch jointers, a large bandsaw, and more woodturning lathes than Jeff is willing to count for a magazine interview. The most impressive element isn’t the machines – it’s the hand-built storage system that lines three walls of the barn’s ground floor, a system Jeff designed over two years and executed over three more, that organizes every clamp, jig, fixture, and accessory he owns in a system he can navigate in the dark.
“The barn is a gift I gave myself when the business did well,” Jeff says. “But I could make the same furniture in 400 square feet. The barn is joy, not necessity.” Both deserve to exist. Have you converted an outbuilding, barn, or unusual structure into a shop? We want the full story.