New Designs for Residential Steel Buildings

In addition to garages and barns, steel buildings are seeing increasing use as homes. Once seen as unfriendly metal boxes at worst or downright ugly hoop-framed Quonset buildings better suited as barns and agricultural storage, metal building manufacturers have rehabbed their drab image with cutting edge designs for steel buildings. In some cases, designers take full advantage of the building material to create stunning statement works of art. More often, though, they rely on the versatility of the metal to create steel buildings that are practically indistinguishable from traditional stick built homes – they’re just a lot cheaper and a lot more comfortable to live in. These are some of the most sought-after styles for modern residential steel buildings.

Contemporary

Do you love clean lines and sweeping curves? Steel was practically invented to accommodate your preferences. Contemporary styles of steel buildings feature expanses of glass and steel, often integrated with wood, stone and brick. While they look modern, they often fit comfortably into natural landscapes, especially wooded hillsides.

Classic Suburban

All the classic suburban styles – peaked roofs, ranch homes, open spaces and bright facades – are easy to achieve in steel. If you’ve got a love for the standard ranch or split-level home, you’ll find that they’re among the most affordable and easiest to build styles. And if anything, when you build these architectural styles from steel components, you get the most flexibility possible with your interior floor plan because there’s no need for support posts and load-bearing walls. Even better, the once-limited color choice for steel buildings has expanded. Most residential steel buildings – with matching garages or barns – are available in the most common and popular colors for homes today, and most manufacturers will happily create custom colors for you, though it will come at a price.

Neo-Mediterranean

Mediterranean style steel buildings are another popular options. Similar to contemporary designs, they feature expanses of glass and steel, but it’s often liberally mixed with stone and brick rather than wood. You’ll also see more use of curves than angles. Neo-Mediterranean homes are also more likely to incorporate energy saving features like skylights and solar panels into their design.

The best thing about choosing steel buildings in modern styles is that they are still, underneath the pretty faces, steel buildings, with all the strengths and benefits of choosing steel as your building material. While they may be more expensive than more typical metal buildings, they’ll be far more affordable than similar designs built with wood frames, and they’ll be far stronger, sturdier and more durable. They’ll also cost far less to maintain and to insure over time.

If you’re in the market for a new home and want the benefits and advantages that come with using one of the best and most affordable building materials, take a look at the many options available for steel buildings on the market today.