This 100-Year-Old Barn Looked Ready to Collapse Until They Built a Modern Home Around Its Old Frame
Weathered boards, failing foundations, open doors, and a structure that had spent about a century exposed to the Quebec climate made this barn look closer to demolition than renovation. Architecture studio La Firme chose another route, preserving the hemlock frame and using it as the structure around which a new country home would take shape.
What survived goes far beyond the barn-shaped exterior. The old frame was dismantled piece by piece, numbered, stored while crews rebuilt the foundations, then installed again inside the new house. Those posts, beams, and braces now cross the kitchen, dining room, living spaces, and upper level, where new walls and glass meet wood that supported the barn for generations.
First Came the Barn That Looked Beyond Repair
Missing boards, weather-stained siding, uneven openings, and a compromised base show how much work stood between the old agricultural building and a house. Instead of stripping away everything except its recognizable barn profile, the project identified the hemlock framework as the part worth carrying into the next use.
That decision changed the renovation from a barn-inspired rebuild into a preservation project. Saving the frame meant taking it apart before construction could move forward, with each timber marked so it could return to its place once the new foundation was ready.
Old Barn Shape Returns With a New Exterior
The finished side elevation keeps the long wall, steep roof, and vertical wood siding associated with the former barn, while black-framed windows and a standing-seam metal roof reveal its new use. Natural hemlock covers the exterior, with white cedar used for the deck, stairs, and entry bridge.
Window sizes also break from the agricultural shell. Tall openings bring daylight into both levels, while their dark frames create a clear distinction between the century-old form and the new residential work.
Rear Wall Trades Barn Doors for Two Stories of Glass
The gable end makes the conversion much clearer. Large panes of glass climb toward the roof peak, turning a wall that once enclosed a dark barn into the main source of daylight for the double-height interior.
A raised cedar deck extends from the glass wall, while stairs connect it with the sloping site below. Instead of flattening the surrounding terrain, stone steps, boulders, planting, and lawn follow the grade around the building.
Main Entrance Still Reads Like a Barn Opening
From the opposite end, the new house keeps one of the barn’s most recognizable proportions: a large central opening. Smaller black-framed windows sit within the broad wall of vertical boards, while a straight wood bridge draws the eye toward the entrance.
Looking through the open doors reveals the other end of the building, turning the old barn axis into a sightline through the house. That connection hints at the open interior without changing the simple gable facade into a conventional residential front.
Thirty Feet of Height Was Left Open Inside
The scale becomes clear once inside. Instead of dividing the entire barn into two conventional floors, the center remains open beneath a 30-foot ceiling, with the dining table positioned inside the original timber frame.
Old posts and braces mark the former structural bays, while white walls occupy sections between them. At the far end, the new gable glazing rises past the upper level and follows the roofline, bringing daylight through both floors without concealing the surviving wood structure.
Modern Kitchen Stops Short of Imitating the Barn
Pale green cabinetry, marble surfaces, black window frames, and three blue-and-white pendants give the kitchen its own identity instead of extending the brown timber palette into every new surface. The old beams remain exposed above and beside the cabinetry, making the division between old structure and new intervention easy to read.
Open shelves replace a bank of upper cabinets around the main window, while the long marble island creates a work and seating zone beneath the timber spans. Whitewashed walls provide another break from the dark wood without hiding its joints, cuts, or aged surfaces.
Kitchen Cabinets Fit Between Existing Timbers
A closer view shows how new elements were fitted around the frame instead of covering it. Cabinet runs stop beside thick posts, shelves occupy the wall between structural members, and tall black-framed windows fill narrow openings that could have become dead wall space.
The marble waterfall counter introduces a sharp geometric surface against wood marked by age and previous construction. Nothing tries to make the century-old timber look new, which keeps the history of the structure visible beside the precise new finishes.
Living Room Sits Under the Rebuilt Frame
Heavy posts and horizontal beams form a second frame around the living room, while the new architecture recedes behind them. White walls occupy the upper volume, and a large black fireplace creates a solid focal point at the far end.
Floor-to-ceiling glazing on the left opens the room toward the deck, while sunlight passes across the pale wood floor and old posts. Built-in shelving beside the fireplace uses another section of wall without competing with the timber structure.
Glass Creates a Room Without Cutting Through the Frame
The games room shows one of the more inventive responses to the old structure. Instead of inserting an opaque wall between the pool table and adjoining space, a frameless glass partition passes through the timber grid, preserving views of the posts and braces from both sides.
That choice gives the room separation while keeping the larger barn volume readable from surrounding spaces. The source identifies the glass wall as a way to separate the games room without breaking its visual connection to the rest of the house.
Upper Floor Leaves the Center of the Barn Open
Looking down from above reveals how much of the original volume was preserved. Bedrooms and private rooms occupy the upper edges, while the dining area remains open from the main floor to the roof.
Old beams cross the void at several heights instead of disappearing inside new ceilings. From this viewpoint, the timber grid explains the house plan: new rooms occupy parts of the barn, but the old frame still determines where many of those boundaries fall. The upper balcony also keeps the two levels connected through views into the dining space.
Bedroom Keeps One Last Piece of the Barn in View
Upstairs, the conversion becomes more restrained. White plank walls, pale flooring, built-in bedside storage, and a low wood bed create a quieter room, yet the large timber post and diagonal brace beside the window keep the old barn visible.
The window replaces the small openings associated with the original agricultural building with a broad view across the trees and hills. Even in one of the most private parts of the house, the century-old frame remains part of the room rather than something sealed behind a finished wall.
The exterior transformation is striking, but the most important part of the old barn isn’t visible here.
Image creidts goes to Before photography by Christian Elie | After photography by Ulysse Lemerise Bouchard