South Texas. no snow. I bought a property that already had a 3-sided 40x60x14, 1/12 pitch roof. Faces SW, so gets a lot of very hot summer sun March-November, but should enhance my solar panel endeavors later this year. 40x40 on a slab, 20x40 open bay. I walled up the front side of the 40x40 so enclosed on 4 sides on the slab, 3 sides on open bay. I put two 12x12 pull up doors on the front, one for each 20x40 bay, and a 36x80 metal door in between the two bays for walk in. Not enough room in the back to the property line to put a drive through door which would have been nice. I hung purlins down the sides for storage shelves on each of the 40ft sides. When the kids were moving around, I built out a 20x15x12 climate controlled storage room inside the 40x40, leaving space for an auto lift I have on the floor waiting for the kids to get their stuff out of the way. Some day I will be able to park my cars in the garage and put all MY stuff (shop, woodworking, welding) in the barn as originally intended. Good luck with your build.
End to end unless you plan on walling off part(s) for any reason. Roll up as gent above mentioned are good idea for economy and ability to raise/lower w/o breaking anything like you, tractor, dog... Seems to be a whole new type of season here near San Jose, CA. monsoon! Cal can always use rain but bucolic seasonal creek has me debating take Case 580 CK extendahoe through or attempt to fire up old D6 or much older RD4. Should have put car back on other side last night. SSDD is getting harder to laugh with or at. On the doors, think long on sliding doors as rust, offset, quakes, 1.75" error in corner of rig... all contribute to them becoming more difficult to push/pull. As I found out when 2 cousins tried to help and forgot there were offset spacers up above the barn door. One had not dealt with old wooden barn before and the other kept backing in to main support uprights on either side of entrance. Sometimes ran into it with full load on bale squeeze. On 3rd hand he recently died at 53 and the other had something go pop in head at age 65 so I get to deal with the 'fun' by my self. Rumor says, "fun ranch," so why is it no fun??? Best to stop here b4 letting burning castles get me down. ZZTop at full volume should knock that back.
