I lived in the loft addition to a barn for almost two years, from June 2016 until March 2018, while waiting for a house to be built on the property so I could purchase it. I had no running water, just a portable sink and portable toilet, and took showers in the property owner’s basement. (Her house was about sixty to eight feet from the barn.) I painted it and set it up with a bedroom and office upstairs on opposite ends of a large room, and a small kitchen area downstairs. It had a furnace, but I spent most of my time upstairs because it got really cold downstairs. Going up and down stairs was tiring,but I loved being able to walk into the barn from the addition, and it was great for foal watch. I could hear the horses in the night, but I got used to that pretty quickly. The only annoying thing was I could hear mice or squirrels or something in between the floorboards of the upstairs and downstairs. That drove me a bit crazy. I love living in the house now, and set the downstairs of the addition up like a lounge/kitchen, but still have the office and bed upstairs if I want to stay for foal watch. It’s tough to go back though, after living in a house with running water again. 
I did it from age 47-49 with a bad hip that needed to be replaced. If I had been younger and not had the hip issue (which was resolved two months ago), then it probably would have been even easier. It was well-worth it though, because now I have my dream farm!
I wonder how many of the tiny house people give up quickly because of the ladder or steps up and down all of the time?
I read a follow up article on three of the tiny house owners from an early season, and all had moved on for various reasons.
why not just move the horses into the house? my kids often had their horses in watching TV with them
We built a 36X36’ barn with a loft overhead. 1/3 of the 2nd story space is reserved as hayloft and 2/3s is a barn apartment. Due to the roof, the barn apartment is basically 24x 30’ There are 2 bedrooms, a full bath, and an open living/dining/ “kitchen” area. This is a “guest” space only! No closets, no full range/oven. Only a frig and microwave, maybe a toaster oven in the future.
The main access is from the exterior via stairs to a 12x12 deck. There is an alternate access via the hayloft down to the feed room. Those stairs are not as easy to maneuver, but they are stairs rather than a ladder.
If you do an apartment, you need to know that you will be hearing horses moving about below you. Some of your plumbing will be within the floor of the second story, which won’t have heating. Insulation in this area will be very important to avoid frozen pipes. Be sure that ALL access points to outside have exterior doors. This will cut down on the dust issues.
If we could have managed the footprint, an apartment beside the barn would have been ideal. Unfortunately, we couldn’t manage an extra 24x36 in the area.
We were the last project our plumbers did with PVC. They are now using only PEX for plumbing. I wish we had known that PEX was an option. It is is much more resistant to freezing and bursting than PVC.
Depending on location…and if their is a home with existing septic… and depending on how many bedrooms/people the septic was approved for… you may be able to connect to the existing system.
