A Timber Frame Company

What Is a Timber Frame?

Timber framing is Carolina Timberworks’ passion and specialty. We work with homeowners and professionals across North Carolina and the United States to provide architectural timber framing for various residential and commercial projects. Timber framing is a traditional method of building with heavy timbers that has been continuously in use for almost two thousand years. To be candid, we’re drawn to and love the timber frame. It’s the best, longest-lasting, and most beautiful way to build we know of.  

Broadly, timber framing is everything that today’s 2×4 and particleboard construction isn’t. Unlike conventional construction where a structure is formed of a great many small pieces of 2x wood connected with nails and glue and later covered with sheetrock, timber frames are built with a few very large (and beautiful) pieces of wood and never covered up.

It’s said that if you want to build something that lasts forever, use stone; if you want it to last 10 years longer, build a timber frame. These buildings regularly last hundreds of years. Westminster Hall & Notre Dame Cathedral’s timber framed roofs, built in the Middle Ages, immediately come to mind; but a number of existing medieval barns, castles, country estates, and Japanese temples provide silent testament to the durability of timber framing.

When the structure is exposed from the inside, as in timber frame construction, it’s easy to see the appeal: simple lines, clear proportions, natural materials, automatic differentiation of spaces within the building arising from the posts and bays, and varied ceiling heights which create both public and intimate spaces.

The greatest art comes from making things very simple, but very elegant and perfectly adapted. Engineers like to point out that a structure will be beautiful if it hews closely to the laws of physics, that elegance accruing naturally to designs that obey the forces of nature. Stand inside a timber frame and look up. You can see exactly what is holding up the roof over your head and picture how the roof loads are transferred to the foundation, and how the whole structure can withstand the force of wind.

You’ll notice something else in timber frames: wooden pegs protruding everywhere two pieces of timber meet. Whether you call them pegs, wooden nails, pins, dowels, trunnels, or trenails, they all point to what makes a timber frame a timber frame: there (generally) aren’t any nails, screws, or bolts holding the wooden posts and beams together.

Instead of metal fasteners, timber frames are held together by intricate wooden joinery locked together by wooden pegs. Why? Because wood and stone are plentiful and convenient building materials, they’ve been used for thousands of years. Of course, simply stacking trees and stones on top of each other leaves something to be desired in a storm, so at least 7,000 years ago, someone came up with a simple and strong way to connect two pieces of stone or wood by carving a protruding end on one piece and a matching hole in the other piece. These joints, called the mortise and tenon joints, are one of the strongest and longest-lasting ways to connect two pieces of wood.

We’re thrilled to see timber framing’s popularity resurface in the 21st century. After all, it would be an understatement to say that we’re dedicated to the craft. Altogether, our team has over 90 years of experience – and we can’t wait to put it to work for you.

Timber Frame Trusses

timber frame truss, n. A collection of timbers or members forming one of the principal supports, as of a roof or bridge, and framed together so as to give mutual support and prevent distortion, as by the forces of gravity and wind loads.

What Does Carolina Timberworks Do?

Carolina Timberworks partners with architects, builders, and homeowners to design, engineer, fabricate, and professionally install custom post and beam and timber frame structures in our home state of North Carolina and anywhere in the United States. Altogether, we’ve completed 700+ timber framing projects.

No matter where you are in the United States, we’re happy to travel to you. The same crew who cuts your timber frame in Carolina Timberworks’ shop, will travel to your job site and professionally install it for you. After all, they know your timber frame better than anyone.

We believe that a timber frame company should rise to the occasion, just like your timber frame. Carolina Timberworks will always deliver – and we’re nice.

What Doesn’t a Timber Frame Company Do?

Carolina Timberworks doesn’t build turn-key timber frame houses or buildings—instead we typically work as a specialty subcontractor for general contractors anywhere in the U.S.

Where Do You Timber Frame?

We’re based in North Carolina, but serve the entire United States.

Browse our timber frame work: