20x50 Single Story Floor Plans

[Seb650R]

Hello all! I wandered across this forum in my search for 20x50 floor plans and decided to sign up.

The Low Down:

I am a college student and have an older brother who is willing to help me get my own place. I am looking at buying a piece of property and erecting a 40x50 steel building on it. My plan was to build out 20x50 of it into a two bedroom two bathroom apartment style home. I'm a Mechanical Engineering student and a tinkerer so I was going to keep the other 20x50 as my shop space (I have a ton of tools and toys). I am pretty handy with AutoCAD but know very little about designing floor plans. I was wondering if anyone has similar plans to what I am looking for or could give me advice as to where to get or how to go about making them. The 20ft end would be the entrance to the house.

Any help is much appreciated,
Sebastian

[flyingvan]

If you were to go to your nearest small municipal airport you'll see tons of hangars with converted living space---most of them are exactly what you're describing.  Some might even be for sale

[BADB0Y]

When using a steel building, you are only limited by your imagination and bank account. This is my long term plan as well. I spent a lot of time researching the different companies.

If I may ask, but why 20x50 for quarters and not the other way? In my mind a 20x50 would feel like a single wide mobile home.

That being said, how tall do you plan for sidewalls and at the peak? How much pitch on the roof?

I will give one other piece of advise: pay a little more for an engineered building design. My insurance company would not allow me to insure as a home without them. They were going to consider it a pole barn and nothing more. The price difference was minor compared to that.

[Seb650R]

If you were to go to your nearest small municipal airport you'll see tons of hangars with converted living space---most of them are exactly what you're describing.  Some might even be for sale

Unfortunately, the closest municipal airport is a long shot from the property I want. I am looking in a specific are of Houston.

If I may ask, but why 20x50 for quarters and not the other way? In my mind a 20x50 would feel like a single wide mobile home.

That being said, how tall do you plan for sidewalls and at the peak? How much pitch on the roof?

I will give one other piece of advise: pay a little more for an engineered building design. My insurance company would not allow me to insure as a home without them. They were going to consider it a pole barn and nothing more. The price difference was minor compared to that.

I was planning on that split because the 40ft end will have to face the front of the property. All of the property I have found is 50ft x 100ft, standard city lots. I haven't fully decided on sidewalls/peak/pitch.

That is good to know that the insurance company wouldn't cover it. The issue seems to be the more I ask a company to do stuff for me, the harder they would like to stick it to me.

[BADB0Y]

Just to be clear, they were happy to cover an engineered structure. They are worried about Bubba with a welder slapping something together and it not holding up. The only difference between Site built and engineered system was about $500 and 3 sets of stamped drawings. Worth every penny in the long run.