Storeys for the barndominium floor plan. + Add level puts a Second floor or a Loft on the building; tabs over the plan pick the level you're drawing, with the one below dashed underneath. Each upper level stands on a floor system you choose — open-web floor trusses, I-joists or dimensional joists, depth, spacing, subfloor, glued and fastened — and a stair sized to the floor-to-floor height. One calculation drives the 3D, the materials list, the labor and the estimate. What still needs an engineer or the truss plant says so on the floor itself, and every floor price starts as a placeholder you replace with your supplier's.
Also called: two story barndominium · 2 story barndominium · barndominium loft · barndominium second floor · floor trusses · I-joists · barndo stair
Add a second floor or a loft, from the floor itself
Try itRight-click the main floor of a barndominium with the roof off — or walk inside and right-click — and pick Add a second floor (the whole footprint, with floor trusses, subfloor and stair) or Add a loft here (from where you clicked to the nearer end wall). Right-click the new floor for its joists, depth, spacing, subfloor, glue and stair. In the floor plan, + Add level does the same.
A second floor drawn somewhere else and priced by hand is a second set of numbers to keep in step with the building.
The floor is added where the customer is looking, and it arrives priced — the conversation moves on to the rooms upstairs.
Pick the floor the way you would order it
Try itOpen-web floor trusses (24″ o.c., ducts through the webs), I-joists or 2x joists; the depth and the spacing — 12″, 16″, 19.2″ or 24″; the subfloor; Glued and fastened; and the stair. The section shows the floor's size, how many trusses or joists cross it, whether it needs a beam and columns, and the floor's materials and labor — on the two-story demo, 2,359 sq ft ÷ 400 sq ft per crew-day for the floor and 24 hours for the stair, at starter rates you set.
Without the floor system, a second floor's price is an allowance — and the beam, the stair opening and the glue come back as change orders.
When the floor is priced from what carries it, the second-floor number holds up when the customer asks what changed.
Draw each level over the one below
Try itTabs over the plan — Main floor | Second floor | + Add level — pick the level you are drawing. The level below shows as a dashed outline, so walls go over walls; the stair shows UP on the floor below and DN with its hole above; a loft's open edge is marked. Upstairs rooms are priced on the estimate like the ones downstairs, and a loft counts only the rooms over the loft.
Upstairs rooms drawn on a separate sheet never line up with the bearing walls and the stair below.
Stacking the levels on screen means the stair lands where it was drawn and the upstairs walls sit over something that can carry them.
A stair that fits, and a hole for it
The stair is sized from the floor-to-floor height: risers no taller than 7¾″, treads at least 10″ deep, 36″ clear between the finished walls, and a landing when one flight would rise past 12′-7″ (IRC R318.7 in the 2024 code, R311.7 before) — the floor says it in one line: risers, treads and clear width. The opening above is framed with doubled headers and trimmers where it is long enough to need them (R502.10), and the stringers, treads, risers, rail and the opening framing all land on the order. Each floor's code check asks for the stair's light and a 3-way switch at the top and the bottom (IRC E3903.3.1), and a smoke alarm on every storey; Place for the whole floor puts them in.
The stair gets drawn as a rectangle, and the opening, the headers and the rail turn up on site.
A stair priced from its own risers and treads — with the hole it needs — is one less thing to discover after the floor is framed.
What still needs an engineer, written on the floor
The floor says what it is: priced allowances the truss plant or supplier confirms. When the clear span runs past what the joists carry, the floor lands on a mid-span beam and columns — "beam, columns and footings to be sized by an engineer". The beam is priced as an allowance, and on a building up to 36′ wide its line names the built-up girder IRC Table R602.7(2) allows for the span between columns (one floor only): a 30×60 on 2x12 joists at 16″ needs one beam line, columns 7′-5¼″ apart, and the table gives a 3-2x12 at that 29′-9″ width. Under a floor that bears on beam lines, main-floor headers read the table's roof, ceiling and one center-bearing floor column; a floor that clear-spans the building leaves them to the floor supplier or an engineer. A second floor hung on the posts of a post-frame shell — the default there — is flagged engineer required, because its ledgers and connections need an engineer's design and the columns and footings carrying it get larger. Floor trusses and I-joists get the gypsum note for the ceiling under them (R302.13).
The engineer or truss supplier sends back a heavier floor after the price has gone out, and the margin goes with it.
The builder knows what to confirm before the customer signs. A flag on the floor is cheaper than a re-quote.
Walls that follow the floors
Add a floor, pick a taller ceiling or a deeper floor system, and the eave rises in the same step — the steel, posts, trusses and price with it — and the toast says what moved, with Undo. Heights shows the stack top down: the eave, each floor's ceiling, each floor system and the top of the slab, and How the eave adds up shows the sum. Lock eave keeps an eave the customer fixed: the floors then warn instead, and Raise walls is one press away.
A loft added to a 12′ building fits on paper and not in the field.
One undo step for the floor and the walls it needs keeps the quote and the building in step, and Lock eave keeps the builder in charge when the eave is the customer's call.
- 1In the floor plan, press + Add level → Second floor or Loft — or right-click the floor in 3D and pick Add a second floor or Add a loft here
- 2Click the level's tab to draw its rooms; the level below shows dashed underneath
- 3The Floor system section sets joists, depth, spacing, subfloor, glue and the stair
- 4The floor's materials and labor show beside it, with the arithmetic
- 5Add a floor and the walls rise to fit it in the same step — the toast says how tall, with Undo; Lock eave keeps an eave the customer fixed, and the floor then warns and offers to raise them
- 6Upstairs rooms stack at the right height in 3D and are priced on the estimate
- 7Print sheets prints a floor-plan page for each level
"Can you price a second floor?" is a question barndominium builders hear, and the honest answer has been a number per square foot. But a second floor is a structure: trusses or joists at a span and a spacing, a rim or a ledger to bear on, a beam and columns when the span runs long, a subfloor glued and screwed, a stair that has to fit, and a hole in the floor for it. Leave any of that out and it comes back as a change order — or as the engineer or truss supplier sending back heavier framing after the price has gone out. So the floor is designed, not guessed. The builder picks the system the way they would order it, and the floor's materials and labor land on the estimate with their arithmetic shown. Where the floor runs past what the joists carry, or sits in a post-frame shell, it says an engineer has to confirm it — before the customer signs, not at plan review.
- Second floors and lofts priced per square foot instead of from what carries them
- Upstairs rooms drawn on a separate sheet from the floor below
- Engineering and stair requirements found after the quote
