Portable Two Story

The Hi-Wall Barn gives you a single story with full standing room and an optional storage loft up top — great if you need workshop space and some overhead storage. The Portable Two Story gives you two full finished floors connected by an interior staircase, both with full 7’8" sidewall headroom, and the second floor is a real working/living level rather than a storage shelf. Pick the Portable Two Story if you actually need 2x the square footage in the same footprint — workshop below + office above, garage below + apartment above, etc. It’s the only model where the upper level is genuinely habitable.

A standard interior straight-run staircase runs along one of the long walls, taking roughly 3 feet of width by 9–10 feet of length on the main floor. On a 12×16, that means you lose about 30 sq ft of main-floor footprint to the stairs — in exchange for ~190 sq ft of usable space upstairs. We can also spec the stair location (front-corner, back-corner, mid-wall) at order time so it doesn’t conflict with your workshop bench layout or garage door swing. Exterior stairways are also available on request, freeing up 100% of the main floor.

12×20 (starting at $13,450 in LP SmartSide) is the workshop-below + office-above sweet spot — you get 240 sq ft on each level, which is enough for a real workshop plus a desk-and-couch office without feeling cramped. Buyers building backyard apartments or guest suites typically step up to 14×24 ($17,460) or 14×28 ($19,440) so the upstairs can fit a small kitchenette or bedroom layout. The 10-wide sizes are unusual — mostly for narrow lots where the 12-wide footprint won’t fit.

Yes — every Portable Two Story through 12×40 is built fully assembled at our Parkesburg, PA shop, including both floors and the interior staircase, and rolled in on a heavy-duty low-profile mule trailer. The transit height is roughly 17–18 feet for the gambrel-roof version, which means we need to confirm bridge clearances, low-hanging branches, and overhead wires very carefully before scheduling. Tight delivery sites should plan on a stub-axle trailer or panelized on-site assembly. The 14-wide sizes (14×16–14×48) are always panelized assemblies because they exceed road-transport width.

The general rule is at least 2 feet wider than the structure, but the two-story models need a bit more — roughly 14 feet of clearance for the 12-wide sizes and 16 ft for the 14-wide sizes. The bigger concern is overhead clearance: the gambrel two-story silhouette is roughly 17–18 ft tall during transit, so we always do a delivery walkthrough on a video call or with photos before locking in a build slot. If your driveway runs under a tree canopy or near power lines, on-site assembly is usually the right call — it adds 30% to the build cost but eliminates the transit height issue.

Yes — always. Even the smallest Portable Two Story (10×16 = 320 sq ft total floor area when you count both levels) crosses every township’s 200-sq-ft accessory-structure threshold in PA, NJ, DE, and MD. Beyond that, the moment you finish either floor for habitable use (insulation, electrical, plumbing) you trigger a residential building permit and inspection. If you plan to use the upper floor as a guest suite, ADU (accessory dwelling unit), or rental, talk to your zoning office before ordering — ADU rules vary wildly by township, and some jurisdictions don’t allow detached ADUs at all. We can supply spec drawings, structural details, and engineering letters at no charge for permit submissions.