Most houses built in the U.S. are "stick built," meaning that they are framed of 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, or 2x12 lumber.  Frames are made and covered with plywood, and these walls are tied together and roofed over. The structure is completely hidden inside sheetrocked walls.

In contrast, in this house - as in all timber frame construction - the first step is to build and raise a massive post and beam frame, and then the house's skin - wall panels, roof - is hung on that frame.  The timber ends and joints are mortise and tenon, and pegged together with wood pegs.

Raising the Frame - March 2006

Pegging a Joint

Flying in a Timber

Fitting

Therefore, when the house is done, its skeleton is out in plain view- and you are surrounded and protected by this massive wood. The sense of enclosure and welcoming is powerful. As craftsmen say, "Timber Frame houses have soul."         Dining Nook Showing Exposed Timbers

Building the Timber Frame From Local Lumber

Store-bought timber frames are now becoming more common, but we have taken the concept several steps further.

The building site was forested with pine, tamarack and fir. When we cleared it, we saved all of that wood, and had a local sawyer come and saw it into timbers and boards with a bandsaw mill. Being old pasture, a fair portion of the wood was curvy and is normally considered worthless. However, by following the grain and keeping the curve, the strength is kept. All timbers were finished with hand planes and carefully labeled and so that the frame could be assembled from the varying wood. In that way the curved local wood turns from junk into a hand-carved gorgeous feature!

Timbers From Stump to Kitchen

Clearing the Site

Judging a Timber

Hand Planing

Roughly 60% of the timber frame came from the 1.5 acre site.               Curved Local Timber in Final Location

Wall System: The No-Stress, No-Waste Panel

The result:  While the walls of a typical timber-frame house might use several hundred sheets of plywood and produce over a ton of non-burnable waste, this house used ZERO plywood in the envelope, and produced almost no waste.

From Panel to Final Wall

In this method, our walls are open to the inside, allowing all of our utility rough-in to be done easily.  More importantly, this method let our insulation contractor, Murphy's Cell-Tech, install cellulose insulation from the inside.  This leads to final, tricky step: we slid the sheetrock between the insulated wall and the timber frame.  That done, Wayne Swasey and crew could hand-plaster the entire surface, yielding a rough-textured wall that further complements the hand-finished timbers.

The resulting wall profile consists of the plaster, sheetrock, cellulose, foam wrap, site-cut rough boards, Typar® windblock, cedar breather for shingle ventilation, and then untreated, fully breathable red cedar shingles. Contrast this to the typical building envelope of sheetrock, fiberglass, plywood, Tyvek® and vinyl siding. In the words of the insulation contractor, ours is truly a 100-year wall assembly, almost maintenance free, "and rated at R-28, 50% better than the industry standard R-19."

Inside Systems

Systems inside are state of the art. The Trinity gas boiler runs radiant floor heating and baseboard radiators, heats the domestic hot water, and is 92.7% efficient (the industry standard is 78-91%, so this is truly "off the charts").  We prepped piping to the rooftop so that a solar hot water heater could be readily installed.

Windows are Andersen casements, vinyl clad and maintenance free.  A chimney will allow a wood stove or gas fireplace in the living room. A ventilation system ensures that outside air is brought in, which is essential in tight houses. We are building the kitchen on site and will use Fireslate countertops with Americast Undermount sinks.  Bathrooms are hand-tiled and spacious. The floor plan allows for a variety of living arrangements; we can just imagine a grand piano right in that middle bay downstairs... The house received a five star energy efficiency rating as designed. See Description and Listing for particulars.

in Conclusion

We are delighted with the house. It is probably 25% more expensive than a conventional stick-built, but with almost zero maintenance, and a heating load guaranteed by the insulation contractor, these are investments that will pay for themselves LONG into the future.

And every day, the owner will be greeted by and enfolded within those warm, strong timbers, and the soul of the house will surround...