I’ve lived in a few and live in one now.
Insurance is my only real complaint. It’s hard to get and expensive.
Small issues are that would have made the one I live in bigger. It’s a 2 bed 1 bath, 830 +/- sqft. It’s small.
The stairs are a bit of a pain. All groceries and furniture have to go upstairs. That gets old.
Otherwise, I love it.
I have lived in them before though, so I’m used to hearing the horses bang around at night. It’s comforting to hear them because if one gets in trouble at night, I’m likely to wake up.
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Well, someone buy this one so I can go concentrate on things I’m supposed to be concentrating on.
https://www.horseproperties.net/properties/Virginia/Madison+County/Madison/31844
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Mine is a side-by-side. We followed all the rules and regulations for an attached garage, except mine is an attached barn. I no longer have an indoor (which I miss, but was part of the downsizing), and my horses use the barn as a run-in, more in the winter than summer. Ease in running out to throw hay, check water, whatever, is priceless in a Michigan winter. Smell is never an issue. It’s dustier than a garage. In the winter I like occasionally hearing the horses shuffle around. The run-in stall is permanent, but easily dismantled. I expect when I sell, I’ll sell it to someone who wants exactly what I have, someone who wants to live in it while they build a traditional place elsewhere on the property, or someone who wants some version of living elsewhere and renting this as an Air B&B (which I expect I’ll do before totally selling it off.)
Barndominiums really do not come out any cheaper than building a standard home, and in many cases can be a little more expensive. They can also be a pain in the rear, as people mentioned above, with regards to insurance, comps for loans, having to move everything upstairs if you live above the barn (you can add a lift, which we have done, but it’s a big expense), and safety regulations.
I’m not sure of your zoning or building regulations, but in many areas, due to it being above or attached to a barn, you would need fire-rated material (doors, insulation, sheetrock, framing), which can be significantly more expensive and limited in choices.
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I like this idea. No stairs and still attached. My target state is Maine, so snow will be a factor as will mud. Being able to get to the horses with a very short walk would be nice. With your attached garage being a barn, did that change how the fire code applied to the design? Were you required to have a fire wall between the two structures since they were attached?
The “fire wall” is the same as an attached garage; material with a 20-minute burn rate. Mine is essentially a shoe-box-like shaped living space within a regular gabled roof pole barn. The shared wall is very thick drywall (3/4"?) with all seams sealed. The ceiling/top of my living space box is scrap metal the barn builder had left over from other jobs capping my living space. That was kind of an afterthought. You could simply build the shared wall to the ceiling of the barn, but my south-facing gabled end is clear pole barn plastic, and I didn’t want to lose the light coming in, so we improvised. My building inspector was fabulous, a real seat-of-his-pants kind of guy who was interested in what I was doing and very helpful with strategies. In fact, after I built, there was a regular stream of people pulling in asking to see the place because word got out what I was doing.
Another great factor of doing this kind of a build is once the outer building is done, the interior workers never have any downtime due to weather, and they can work right up to quitting time, not worrying about putting away tools and breaking down saws, etc. From the first day the interior crew came on, at 4pm, they simply unbuckled tool belts, walked out, locking the door behind themselves.
My exterior building went up the last week of March, and I had an occupancy permit by mid-August. My building is 60’X56’, so my living space is 30’X56’. I love, love, love it, never more than in January or February.
Any pictures you would let us see what you have there?
Sounds very interesting!
Oh boy - testing my computer literacy are you?? 
Give me some time to sort images out.
Tarlo, that’s beautiful!
Beautiful What is above the living area? Any pix of the barn side?
Awesome!
I now understand what you were talking about the translucent wall panels, that gives so much light in there.
The rooms look super nice, bet you are really enjoying it all.
That last is a Christmas card picture, neat.
Thank you so much!
That actually WAS my Christmas card a couple years ago! Thanks everyone. Yes, I love it and am very proud of it. Not much to see on the barn side. It’s just a big 30’X56’ area with a 15’X20’ corner boxed in with two doors for the run-in. At this time of year it’s crammed like sardines in a can with a seasonal car, a little boat, small tractor and implements, the last of the winter hay, and assorted yard tools. I like my stuff inside in the winter. There’s nothing over the living area but space - though a couple of my little friends (9 & 6yo) often suggest it would make a cool fort - I’ve been brutally strict about not storing stuff up there (except the patio furniture in the winter), because we all know the more room you use to store stuff, the more stuff you have to store. And it’s not easy to get things up and down from there.
The drive is on the north side and about 250’ long. It still cracks me up walking back from the mail box how much the joint just looks like a red and white pole barn in the middle of pastures…until you walk around the other side. 
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