Resources / Company reviews

1845 Barndominiums Review: Pricing, Plans and What Owners Say

Updated July 2026 · Barndo Finder research

1845 Barndominiums is a custom barndominium builder in Hallsville, Texas that builds turnkey homes locally and ships steel building kits and stock floor plans nationwide. Stock plans sell for $25 each on their plan store, and third-party reviews report sample kit packages from roughly $32,000 to $110,000. Turnkey build pricing is not published, and public reviews run 4.3 stars with a real split between happy owners and complaints about delays and finish quality.

Key takeaways

• 1845 sells three things: $25 stock floor plans through 1845shop.com, bolt-together steel kits and shells shipped nationwide, and full custom builds near Hallsville, TX.
• Turnkey pricing is not published anywhere on their site. You have to request a quote.
• Third-party reviews report kit prices of about $32,000 to $110,000, which is roughly $26 to $52 per square foot for the kit alone. That is not a house price.
• Public reviews average 4.3 stars across 75 reviews on Birdeye. Praise centers on honored pricing and responsive staff. Complaints found elsewhere mention a build running past a year, warped doors, and siding installation problems.
• The parent company, MBM Metal Buildings LLC, has been in business since 2001 per its BBB file but holds no BBB rating and no accreditation.
• Good fit: East Texas buyers who want one company from design to move-in. Poor fit: anyone outside the roughly 80-mile build radius who needs more than a kit.

What does 1845 Barndominiums actually sell?

1845 Barndominiums sells stock floor plans, steel building kits and shells, and full turnkey builds, but only the plans and kits are available nationwide. The company describes itself as a custom design and build firm with turnkey delivery, and its site pushes customization as the starting point rather than an upgrade. If you are still deciding between those three routes, our shell, kit or turnkey guide breaks down what each one really covers.

Photo: Sawyer Metal

The company operates from 12882 IH 20 North Service Rd W in Hallsville, Texas, east of Longview. It is a sister company to MBM Metal Buildings, a metal building fabricator at the same location. Founder Cody Holloway came out of the metal building industry and built his first barndo in 2007, per third-party profiles. The BBB file for MBM Metal Buildings LLC shows the business started in January 2001.

That fabrication background matters. 1845 is not a general contractor reselling someone else's steel. The building package comes from the family fabrication shop, which is one less markup in the chain.

How much do 1845 barndominium floor plans cost?

Stock floor plans cost $25 each as digital downloads at 1845shop.com. That is cheap enough to buy two or three just to study layouts. The store listed 8 plans when we checked in July 2026.

One caution. Third-party reviews describe tiered plan packages, with top tiers reported around $1,500 to $1,800, and the company ran a $250-off promotion on its Gold Package in July 2026. A $25 download is almost certainly a concept set, not a stamped construction set. Ask exactly what tier your permit office and lender need before you count the plan line as done.

How much do 1845 barndominium kits cost?

1845 does not publish kit prices on its own site, but third-party reviews report sample kit packages from about $32,000 to $110,000 before customization. Treat these as reported figures, not quotes. For context on what other suppliers charge, see our kit price comparison by supplier.

Source: figures reported by BarndominiumZONE, a third-party review site. Confirm current pricing directly with 1845 before budgeting.

Here is where we put our foot down. A kit at $26 to $52 per square foot is the shell package, period. The same third-party reporting notes these kits exclude interior framing and windows. You still need a slab, erection labor, windows, doors, all mechanicals, insulation, drywall, floors, cabinets, septic, water, and driveway. On our numbers, a finished barndo in Texas runs $140 to $210 per square foot turnkey, with shell-only work at $40 to $70. The kit is usually a quarter to a third of your real budget. Check the full breakdown on our cost table before you fall in love with a kit number. It also pays to see how 1845 stacks up against the national kit manufacturers we rank on engineering and lead times.

What does a turnkey 1845 build cost?

Not published. The company's process page walks you through loan pre-approval, land, a sales meeting, preliminary drawings, then final plans and construction, and the number shows up at the quote stage, not on the website. That loan pre-approval step is worth doing right; our guide to barndominium construction loans covers rates, draw schedules, and approval odds.

We do not love unpublished pricing, but it is normal for custom builders. For sanity checking, our directory estimate for East Texas turnkey construction is $140 to $210 per square foot depending on finish level, so a 2,000 square foot build has a realistic range of $280,000 to $420,000 before land, septic, well, and long utility runs. If any builder quotes you a finished house at under $100 per square foot, assume you are looking at a shell quote wearing a turnkey costume until you see the inclusion list in writing.

What do owners say in 1845 Barndominiums reviews?

Reviews are mostly positive with a meaningful minority of serious complaints. On the company's Birdeye profile, 1845 holds 4.3 stars across 75 reviews. Positive reviewers describe pricing honored months after it was quoted, a professional and responsive team, and repeated praise for a project manager named Trey. Feeling "treated like family" is a recurring theme.

The complaints are the kind you should take seriously. Negative reviews surfaced through other review aggregators mention a build that ran past a year without completion, warped doors, metal siding installed improperly, and stretches of slow communication. We found no active complaint history on the BBB profile, but the BBB also lists the company as not rated and not accredited, so the BBB file tells you little either way. For a baseline on what a normal schedule looks like, see our stage-by-stage build timeline.

Our read: the volume of positive reviews suggests the average project goes fine, and the negative reviews cluster around schedule and finish-out quality control, which are exactly the failure points to write into your contract. They are also the two problems owners bring up most in our roundup of barndominium regrets. Ask for a construction timeline with milestone dates and a punch-list process before you sign.

Where does 1845 build and ship?

Full construction service covers roughly an 80-mile radius around Hallsville, Texas, per third-party profiles, while kits and plans ship nationwide. That radius covers Longview, Marshall, Tyler, and reaches toward Shreveport and Texarkana.

Photo: Ark-La-Tex Shop Builders

If you are in that circle, 1845 is a legitimate turnkey candidate and worth a bid against other Texas builders. If you are in Oklahoma or Arkansas, you are a kit customer at best, and you will need your own GC or serious owner-builder capacity. In that case compare local outfits in our Oklahoma and Arkansas listings, where our turnkey estimates run $130 to $195 and $125 to $190 per square foot.

Who fits, and who should look elsewhere?

1845 fits East Texas buyers who want one company handling design, steel, and construction, and remote buyers comfortable acting as their own GC on a kit. The in-house fabrication, the $25 plan store, and an active YouTube channel showing real projects all point to a company that knows this building type cold.

Look elsewhere if any of these apply. You live outside the build radius and need a finished house, not a steel package. You need published pricing to shortlist builders without a sales call. You have zero construction management experience and were planning to "figure out" a kit build; the excluded interior framing and windows alone will eat an inexperienced budget. Or your schedule is rigid, because at least one public review describes a build stretching past a year.

Our take

1845 Barndominiums is a credible regional builder with a real fabrication operation behind it, and the 4.3-star record supports that. The $25 stock plans are one of the cheapest ways in the market to study real barndo layouts. The kit line is fairly priced for what it is, but what it is, is a shell package: the reported $26 to $52 per square foot covers the steel, not the house, and the real budget question is the other $100-plus per square foot of interior, systems, and site work.

If you are within 80 miles of Hallsville, get a turnkey bid from 1845 and put at least two competing bids next to it. If you are anywhere else, buy a $25 plan for research, then price the whole project honestly with land, septic, and site work as separate lines. Our cost data and builder directory of 335 barndo-specific builders across 40 states exist for exactly that comparison.

Get competing quotes before you commit

The fastest way to know if an 1845 bid is fair is to put 2 or 3 quotes beside it. Tell us your state, square footage, and whether you want a shell, kit, or turnkey build, and we will match you with builders who actually work in your area. Start at /quote; it takes about two minutes.