6 Beautiful Barndominium Siding Ideas for Your Dream Home

Looking for the perfect barndominium siding ideas to bring your dream home to life? Whether you love modern farmhouse charm, industrial edge, or rustic appeal, the right siding can completely transform your barndo’s personality. 

Let’s explore six of our barndominium siding ideas, complete with materials, colors, and decorative elements to help you create the perfect look.

Why Barndominiums Offer Endless Possibilities 

Barndos have surged in popularity thanks to their incredible versatility and personalization potential. No matter which barndominium house plans you choose, they all evoke a cozy feel that blends beautiful living spaces with large garages, workspaces, or even spaces for animals.

With a few smart material choices, you can customize your barndominium so it’s more than just a home that resembles a barn. The right siding options, trim, beamwork, and other details can help you create designs that evoke the modern farmhouse look, the industrial style, or even a rustic aesthetic that blends the best of barn styling with timeless, woodsy elements that would feel at home on any farm.

Modern Farmhouse Barndominium Siding Ideas

The modern farmhouse look blends traditional and contemporary elements to create a fresh take on the classic farmhouse style. In modern barndominiums, traditionalism stems from the barn-like style, plus elements like large front porches, board and batten siding, and neutral color palettes. 

Modernism is evident in design choices such as clean lines, high-contrast color schemes, and large windows. 

Below, we’ll feature barndominium exterior ideas in the modern farmhouse style to show how traditional and contemporary elements work together to create aesthetic appeal.

1. Combine White Siding With Sharp Contrasts

This barndominium exterior design is an excellent example of how the modern farmhouse look can feel clean and contemporary without sacrificing warmth or character. There are several elements here working together to give this barndo a polished look:

• White Board and Batten Foundation: TruLog board and batten siding in white creates a crisp, classic farmhouse look.
• Black Chimney Contrast: Extra modernism comes through via the chimney, which uses TruLog lap siding in black to create a sharp color contrast and a contrast between the board and batten’s vertical lines and the lap siding’s horizontal lines.
• Natural Balance: Natural wood elements and warm porch lighting provide balance, ensuring the design doesn’t shift from the modern farmhouse style to a contemporary aesthetic.

This design is ideal for homeowners who want a fresh take on the modern farmhouse style.

2. Create a Compact and Cozy Design With Modern Elements

This barndominium is another fantastic example of how you can blend modernism with traditional charm to create the modern farmhouse look. Here, TruLog’s steel siding in the board and batten style creates clean lines and a smooth, sleek look. 

Black elements like window trim, doors, beams, and even gutters make a great contrast against the bright metal siding. There are also plenty of large windows to let lots of light into the living space.

The sense of traditionalism comes from the barndominium house plans themselves. The gambrel-style roof and compact floor plans create a charming, cozy barn-inspired look with strong curb appeal.

Industrial Barndominium Siding Ideas

Not all house plans lend well to the industrial style, but barndominiums are uniquely well-suited to it. That’s because they avoid one of the main dangers that comes with industrial design, which is that it’s easy to create a home that looks plain. 

If the home’s exterior is overly boxy, it risks looking more like a pole barn or outbuilding than a finished home. Barndominiums, however, often feature unique shapes and layouts: 

• Distinctive Rooflines: Monitor and gambrel-style roofs create distinctive profiles
• Welcoming Porches: Big front porches create additional visual interest
• Strategic Openings: Large windows and garage doors break up long expanses of exterior siding

Pair these elements with exterior colors and siding styles that create a functional aesthetic to successfully pull off the industrial look.

3. Recreate the Look of a Historic Factory

Many assume that barndominium designs are limited to the farmhouse aesthetic, but with the right choices, you can also create an industrial flavor. This barndo brings to mind an early 1900s industrial building, and it relies on two things to create this look:

• Historic Roofline: A monitor-style roof, which was historically popular not only among barns but also among some historic factories and industrial facilities
• Weathered Gray Siding: TruLog board and batten siding in Weathered Gray, which combines the antique look of weathered wood with steely gray shades that evoke an industrial look

Another important aspect of this design is simplicity. Farmhouse-inspired designs and rustic barndominiums may include additional ornamentation, such as stonework around the foundation, exposed beams on porches, or other details. 

Still, industrial buildings are built for functionality first, so they often have unadorned designs that place greater emphasis on color and texture.

4. Take Inspiration From Lumber Mills and Sugar Houses

This barndominium is another excellent example of how to combine the barndominium’s innate rustic charm with industrial themes to create a unique look. 

Here, the monitor-style roof evokes the look and feel of an early lumber mill or maple sugar house, where the high row of windows would have been useful both for lighting workers and for venting steam from lumber kilns or pots of steaming maple syrup. 

However, unlike the previous industrial-inspired barndominium, this one has a few elements that help modernize it while keeping the industrial look:

• Contemporary White Siding: TruLog board and batten siding in white, which is a more modern color choice than wood-look shades or traditional reds and browns
• Industrial Size Doors: Large, prominent garage doors, which suggest the use of modern power equipment
• Clean Line Details: Beams and balcony railing, which add modernity through clean lines

Like other barndominiums with an industrial twist, this one emphasizes a simple aesthetic. Even where beamwork and railings are present, they contribute a functional, minimalist feeling rather than weighing down the look with heavy decoration.

Rustic Barndominium Siding Ideas

Much like the modern farmhouse style, today’s rustic aesthetic often blends rustic and contemporary elements. 

On the rustic side, homeowners typically choose an exterior that resembles wood siding but with greater durability — such as log, lap, or board and batten options in natural wood shades from TruLog. 

Another great way to add rusticity to a barndo is to mix materials: Pair steel board and batten siding with wood beamwork and natural stone decorative elements, for example.

The modern elements focus on creating a fresh take on an old look while preventing the design from drifting from the rustic style into a distressed one. That’s one reason why board and batten siding is highly recommended: It adds lots of clean, vertical lines to the exterior design. 

Choosing bright siding colors like white instead of wood tones can give a rustic barndo an updated look, too.

5. Pair White Board and Batten With Beautiful Woodwork

As this example illustrates, achieving the rustic look is surprisingly simple when you start with a classic barndominium design. TruLog’s board and batten siding in white is a great choice because the style creates a traditional look in keeping with the style of old barns. 

The danger with rustic designs is that too much rusticity can create a look that comes across as shabby, not chic. Here, the white siding keeps the design clean and cozy. Further rustic elements come in through the details:

• Wood Beams: Beautiful natural wood beam work, which creates a very rural look
• French Barn Doors: Matching doors that combine the rusticism of barn doors with the elegance of French windows
• Coordinated Soffits: Soffiting in natural wood shades to match the doors and beamwork, bringing the whole look together

As you can see, a few simple color and texture choices can go a long way toward creating a barndo that is charmingly rustic, without the need to replicate the look of a battered old barn.

6. Embrace Warm Wood Tones

This barndominium design idea is perfect for those who love the rustic style. Several elements combine to create a warm and cohesive look:

• Wood Tone Foundation: TruLog’s board and batten siding in a warm, natural wood shade creates a beautiful foundation for the entire exterior design.
• Vertical Height Enhancement: The board and batten’s vertical lines pair with the peaked roof to create a sense of height, making this barndo feel larger and more inviting despite its compact size.
• Rich Roof Accents: Dark browns in the roof and trim add extra warmth, making this barndo feel even more welcoming.
• Textural Contrast: Natural wood beams and a beautifully styled traditional barn door provide a textural contrast, enhancing visual appeal and emphasizing the rustic theme.

Overall, this design makes smart use of traditional and rustic elements to create a home that exudes comfort and charm.

Bring the Best Barndominium Siding Ideas to Life With TruLog Steel Siding

When it comes to creating a unique look, there are many different avenues to pursue. The modern farmhouse look, the industrial aesthetic, and the rustic style are all easy to achieve with the right barndominium siding ideas — plus a couple of extra elements like oversized windows, clean lines, or warm woodwork.

TruLog steel siding is a fantastic choice for your barndo project because it offers the incredible durability of steel, minimal upkeep, and, compared to less durable options like wood or vinyl siding, it’s cost-effective. Be sure to download our free catalog to explore the colors and styles that can help bring your barndominium design to life.