Designer Recycles An Old Barn Coast-to-Coast

[hausdok]

Marni Leff Kottle, Special to The Chronicle

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Barbara Johnsen spent her entire career helping other people design their dream homes. After three decades as an interior designer, Johnsen finally took a crack at her own - inside the skeleton of a barn that dates to the 1840s.

The barn was hauled from New Jersey to Sonoma in hundreds of pieces on a flatbed truck and meticulously reconstructed.

Still, somehow, the barn feels as if it has been on the property forever. That, according to Johnsen, is exactly the point.

The style is kind of rustic Americana, Johnsen said, the kind that blends patched-up, mismatched floor boards from the 1800s with a gleaming new Viking range.

To read more at the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.