timberframing
Building a Custom Timber Frame Home: The Process
The custom timber frame home building process starts with a dream. The Owners find the right architect, who then defines the dream. Their builder manifests the dream.
In what we think is our best video yet, dreams become reality one step at a time.
A Pursley Dixon Architecture English inspired summer retreat perches proudly on a mountainside. This sanctuary, consisting of multiple porches and balconies along with linear room arrangements, ensures breathtaking views of the National Forest and beyond.
From a timber framer’s perspective, it’s a work of art: A majestic cantilevered terrace supported by massive timber brackets and impossibly slender cantilevered joists..made possible by engineered structural steel artfully concealed inside Western Red Cedar timber framing. Supported by pairs of 9′ tall brackets, the timber deck joists taper gracefully to impossibly slender profiles as they reach further and further out over the gorge–making those not privy to the secret ask, “how did they do that?”
General contractor: Paradigm Custom Home Builders.
Roof thatcher: William P. Cahill
Music written and produced by Paul Defiglia | Performed by Mickela Mallozzi.
The Custom Home Building Process: Dream
- Something inspires the Owner(s) to build something.
- Owner(s) then looks for an architect.
- Something makes the Owner(s) confident in their choice of architect.
Definition
- Architect identifies their program–the Owners’ lifestyle, personality, and budget.
- What it’s really about: great architects put their ego aside and design something that is a “total reflection of homeowner’s personality and lifestyle.”
Manifestation
- How to choose a builder: his or her custom home building process.
- Builder builds. Builder takes 2D architectural drawings and turns them into 3D reality.
how we do it | moving timber
Sometimes you have to do it the hard way: installing timbers when the roof is already in place. Whether you call it retrofitting timber or the hard way to build a timber frame, the idea is similar to building a ship in a bottle–only harder. For starters, you’ve got to figure out how to budge 800 lb. timbers inside the building…