However, if you want to add a little extra panache to your personalize your dream home, there are a number of ways in which you can add to the charm factor. Dream all you want, but when it comes down to implementing your plans, sit down with your contractor’s design team or an architect to ensure that your ideas are doable in a cost effective manner that won’t undermine the integrity of your home’s structure.

You can start with a timber frame fence across the front of your yard. Substantial posts with shaped finials and post and beam construction add a substantial look to your property perimeter. Add a timber frame gable roof over a gateway, or perhaps a sturdy trellis to surround your footpath entryway.

Pergolas and pavilions, done in a timber frame style, add attractive living space to your yard. Your porch roof can be supported with post and beam styling, and the porch roof can feature timber frame trusses.

Add brackets and bracing under eaves and at the corners for additional timber frame charm.

Play Up Your Home’s Exterior With Special Touches

Your timber frame home will have a unique look with the exposed posts and beams, but you can accentuate the look with the additional use of other natural materials.

Stone is a natural to use with timber frame construction, so consider building a great stone chimney. Stone can be used to face exterior walls, create a porch and steps or to face support columns.

Skirl siding, which is irregular, textured cedar siding or shingles, complements the natural look of a timber frame home. This siding is becoming very popular and is a durable material that accentuates timber frame styling. This wood can be finished with a protective seal to maintain the cedar coloring, or left to slowly weather naturally.

Trusses Do More Than Hold Up Your Roof

Of course, simple trusses are the most inexpensive trusses to build your home, but strategically locating more decorative trusses can add a lot of interest to your room.

As you walk through your front entry into your great room, a stunning hammer beam truss in view across the room is bound to add instant appeal. King post trusses are equally striking, and a series of scissor trusses in a cathedral ceiling room is very impressive. There are a number of custom designed trusses that your design team can suggest to offset the beauty of your home.

Millwork That Plays Up The Beauty Of The Wood

Using millwork to emphasize the timbers in your home is another way to punch up the wood theme in your home. Baseboards, crown molding, window and door trim that matches the styling of your timbers adds to the charm of your timber frame home. A great mantel over your fireplace becomes a focal point in the room and adds a custom look.

The material you choose for your flooring can also add to the charm of your timber frame home. Salvaged wood planks from old buildings give your home an earthy, country look. Narrow, finely finished hardwood flooring will lend an elegant, refined appearance.

Slate or stone flooring in an entryway or foyer adds drama, while tile with a handmade appearance gives a warm and inviting look to a kitchen, bathroom or hallway.

Mix floor coverings to emphasize the different areas of your home. Using different materials and textures in floor coverings can add interest and energy to your decorating style.

Decorate To Accentuate Timber Frame Styling

Your furniture can also take a cue from your home’s timbers. By using the same type of wood stain on your furniture as the exposed timbers, you’re emphasizing the timbers and creating visual harmony.

If you want a rustic atmosphere, choose a hand-hewn look in wooden pieces with a massive style. For elegant decorating, choose more refined furniture to act as a counterpoint.

Whether you prefer a rustic country, contemporary, European Gothic revival or an elegant English manor look, your timber frame home is up to the decorating challenge. Just make sure to check with your designer or architect to ensure that your ideas won’t blow your budget, and your customization is structurally sound.

A deck is a great way to maximize your living space and add an attractive focal point to your backyard. It’s also a great investment that will repay you for years with comfort, enjoyment and add value to your timber frame home.Before you start digging post holes or dialing your local home improvement contractor, plan to spend time researching and developing deck plans that suit your family and your house. Regardless of whether this is a change order for the new home you’re having built or it’s an addition to an existing house, plan around these design basics to ensure you’re getting the perfect living space that’s built with you and your family in mind.

Design A Deck That Complements Your Home

Your deck should round out your home and yard. Consider where it will set along the exterior of the house, and how it fits with the windows and doors along that plane. It should harmonize with the design of your home exterior and act as a foil for moving from inside the house to the outside yard.

The size of an average deck is roughly 12 to 18 percent of the total square footage of a house. Regard it as another room that requires the same design tenets and considerations. Windows and doors of your home should be weighed as you plan your deck. Position the area so that it harmonizes with the existing openings and architectural elements of the exterior façade.

Plan Your Deck To Function With Your Family’s Needs

If you plan to use your deck for dining and entertaining, it makes sense to position it adjacent to your kitchen. Outdoor grilling and meals for family and friends is one of the main uses of a deck, so ease of food preparation, staging and serving is high on the list of necessities. A kitchen entrance that leads directly to the deck is common and a good way to make life simple for the host and hostess.

photo by Moresun Woodworking

If your deck will be the scene of dinners, parties and social occasions, plan adequate space for a dining area with a table and chairs. A screened gazebo or sheltered pergola is a perfect setting for an outdoor dining room.

Outdoor kitchens and fireplaces are growing in popularity. If that’s not in the cards right now, are these things you may want in the future? If you might consider them at a later date, do a little research now on how they may fit with your existing deck or how your deck could be expanded to incorporate them later.

If a hot tub is part of your design, consider its location on the deck. Consider how to address any privacy issues or how bathers can access other rooms in your home.

Plan A Layout And Size That’s Right For You

When you’re planning your deck, there are limitless sizes and shapes. Don’t be locked into a staid rectangle if your property screams for a different shape. You can alter the shape, size and level of your deck to give it personality and add to its function. You and your family are the ones who’ll be using it, so plan it to fit in with your lifestyle.

Maybe you want to separate zones visually and physically. You may connect decking areas that lie at different levels to separate dining, entertaining and spa areas. A bump-out area at one end of the deck may accommodate the hot tub, or a hexagon area adjacent to the grilling area may contain the dining table and chairs.

Whatever your design ideas, you should plot out your ideas with a garden hose or a can of spray paint to indicate the perimeter of your space. It’s a good idea to use two-foot increments when planning your deck, as lumber is generally available in 8 to 16 foot lengths. If you stick with standard materials, you’ll reduce waste and save time cutting odd lengths of wood.

The width of a deck is no problem. You just keep adding joists, and your deck can just keep getting wider and wider. However, you do have to consider how deep your deck will be. Common 2 x 8 inch joists can span no more than 12 feet without a set of posts and beams. Consider the amount of labor as well as materials when you’re designing your deck.

Stairs, Railings And Other Considerations

If you’re planning on stairs to lead from your deck to the lawn, check with your community building department for local regulations. Typically, a stairway can be no narrower than 36 inches. A generous stairway is visually appealing, and it makes egress much easier if you have many guests or are carrying large, cumbersome items.
The rise and run of your steps are generally set between 10 and 12 inches. This standard is for safety, more so than aesthetics. If your deck is a second floor structure, a landing on the way down to the ground level is another safety feature you should consider.

Railings are generally required for any deck that is more than 30 inches above ground and for stairs that have more than four steps. Your local building code will specify the required height, but it typically ranges from 36 to 42 inches. Spacing between the vertical posts should be from four to six inches, and the height between the deck and the bottom of the rail is about two to four inches.

Another area you should investigate is how things like your water spigots and dryer vent may impact your deck design. If you position your deck below these features, you’ll have easy accessibility. No need to go crawling under the deck for maintenance or to attach or remove hoses. Check the location of your downspouts to ensure your deck location doesn’t cause problems there, too.

Planning your deck is very similar to designing an addition to your home. You should consider how it blends in with your existing structure, how it impacts your yard and how you can best utilize the area to make it a welcome addition to your timber frame home living space.

Folks who are building timber frame homes with SIP’s need to be a little more pro-active than their stick home counterparts. The reason for their concern is the enclosed panels used to create the exterior walls of their home. These are structural insulated panels, which are better known as SIPs. These rigid, solid core panels are the primary material used for the exterior walls of your home. They have great insulating properties and are pre-fabricated before being delivered to your building site. They’re ready to set in place and install when they arrive, so any custom work is done at the manufacturer’s facility.

How Do I Run Wire Through A SIPs Wall?

Since SIPs are solid insulating foam surrounded by rigid panels, it’s not quite as easy as grabbing a sawzall and cutting a hole in drywall. You need to note on your electrical blueprint the location of all outlets, lighting receptacles and switches, wiring junctions, telephone outlet, cable television outlets and computer wiring circuits.

Your SIPs manufacturer will use this information to place conduit runs and electrical box locations in your home’s wall panels. Horizontal chases are generally placed at industry standard switch and outlet heights.

Depending on the manufacturer’s designs, vertical chases may be cored through the body of the panels or they may be run near the edge of the panel. These horizontal and vertical conduit runs allow the electrician to snake wires along the perimeter of the structure and run wiring from one floor to the next.

If you have specific needs, you should discuss your plan with your contractor or talk directly with your SIPs representative to ensure that your ideas are physically possible and will be properly fabricated during the construction of your SIPs.

Since the panels are all prefabricated before arriving at your work site, it’s a good idea to keep things simple on the exterior walls. Limit your wiring in the SIPs walls to switches, lighting and receptacles and plan for the minimum code requirements.

Try to place your feeds to other levels of the house through conventional interior walls and floors. You may want to consider a conventionally framed wall where the electrical service panel is located. There’s a lot of wires there, and it may be a more practical solution for that particular area. Talk with your contractor about which method is most effective for this area of your home.

How Do The Channels Affect The Insulating Factor Of SIPs?

The insulating nature of SIPs makes them a very attractive building alternative. However, when you compromise the solid core, you’re subtracting from the insulating power of the material. Part of the job is making sure that once the wiring is complete, the raceways and voids are filled with foam. This restores the R-factor and ensures you have a properly insulated home.

This segment in building your home is sort of invisible. It’s an area that can be done poorly, or not at all, and no one is the wiser at first glance. Insulating these raceways is time consuming and an added labor expense for the installer. You and your contractor should be watchful that all cavities are properly injected with foam after the wires have been pulled and the electrical work is completed.

Minimize Electrical Needs To Exterior Walls

One way to reduce your expense in having a lot of custom made SIPs panels fabricated with electrical raceways is to have the bulk of your wiring running through the interior walls of your home. Although your timber frame home has specially constructed exterior walls, your interior partitions are standard 2×4 construction. By eliminating all but the basic electrical requirements to your SIPs wall, you can save time, labor and money.

Think about your future needs while you’re planning your electrical plan. It’s far easier and more economical to add access for future needs now than it is to add them later. Don’t shortchange your future goals by scrimping on your current budget. Plan well and plan wisely.

Why You Need An Architect or Designer?

Even if you are considering using stock plans for your timber frame home, an architect’s input may be valuable. You may want to make alterations to the stock plans, and an architect will be able to safely make structural modifications. Moving walls willy-nilly is never a good idea, and if you move the wrong one, you may lose structural integrity.

The architect can suggest the optimum location and placement of your home on your building site to maximize the view and make the most of the sun’s passive energy. Your designer can also advise you on other potential drawbacks or situations on your property and make recommendations to solve any problems.

An architect wears many hats, and you can have them do as many or as few as you need. When you are considering what may be the largest single investment of your life, an architect is a good insurance policy to make sure that you don’t make any mistakes that could cost you much more than you can afford.

Find a Designer Who Is Willing To Listen To You

We all have sketched ideas about what we’d like in the perfect home of our dreams. However, putting those vague ideas into a concrete design is beyond most folks skill level. Finding and using an architect or designer that’s familiar with timber frame home design and willing to incorporate your ideas is important to ensure that your home reflects your taste and what’s important in your lifestyle.

You may have to interview a number of architects or designers before finding one who’s in sync with you. If he understands what you want and is able to expand and improve on your ideas, you may have found your design partner.

Some architects are intent on foisting their visions on you and don’t have room for any ideas other than their own. Those professionals, regardless of their talent and reputation, are not for you. Just keep looking until you find someone who is interested in what you want.

Find your Architect or Design Team Here

What Does Your Architect or Designer Need To Know?

Discussing your goals, asking and answering questions, and suggesting alternatives is a big part of the architect’s job of assisting you in bringing your dream home to life. An architect who is familiar with timber frame construction is best suited to help you match your budget to your house requirements. He or she will be able to provide you with alternatives that fill both your budget and desires, if compromise is required.

You’ll need to come up with a list of what you want and need in your future home. The style, size and amenities will help in setting up a budget. How many bedrooms and baths do you need? Do you want a formal dining room? Are your bedrooms sanctuaries, or are they merely rooms for sleeping? Do you want an attached garage? What are the dimensions of your rooms? Do you intend on retiring in this house. If this will be your retirement home, would you prefer a single-level house? Is it possible that you will have a need for a mother-in-law suite in the future?

Your architect or designer will communicate and coordinate with the timber frame fabricators to ensure that his plans integrate with the timber frame systems. This melding of design ideas and plans is a collaboration of your architect and the timber frame building company. It’s essential for a successful project, and both teams need to be in accordance.

Some timber frame building companies have either a list of local architects that are familiar with this type of construction, or they may have an architect on staff. Working with an designer who is familiar with the fabricating and building team is efficient and may save time and money.

There’s a big difference between the kiln dried, dimensionally stable lumber that’s used to create your furniture and the heavy timbers used to build your home.
Wood used in furniture building is kiln dried and will have little shifting, swelling or shrinking. Varnishes, urethanes and lacquers seal the wood to maintain the moisture level in the wood and protect the surface from damage.

Lumber used to build a timber frame home needs to breathe. It moves because of varying moisture content in the cells of the wood, stresses that are caused by the building itself and the changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.

Green timber attempts to maintain moisture equilibrium. The chemical composition of the green wood and the constant dispersal of moisture will eventually oxidize and break down a finish that seals the wood.

If the builder is using re-sawn lumber, the reverse process occurs. The dry timber fibers will absorb moisture from the air. The wood needs oils to reduce brittleness and provide moisture as new movement and stress factors from the repurposing come into play.

The Purpose Of A Wood Finish On Timber Frame Lumber

Whether you’re using green wood or re-cycling lumber, there are three objectives in the finishing process of your structure.

Foremost, the wood must be stabilized. The goal is to minimize the shrinking process, slow down drying and reduce checking. This ensures that all the joinery remains tight and there is no danger of shifting, movement or cracking to the point of instability.

Second, a finish is used to enhance the beauty of the wood. You want your house to look its best, and finishing the wood to play up the natural colors, grain and texture increases the charm of your unique and distinctive home.

The third objective of a good finish is its ease of application. Although this is a job that isn’t performed often, it’s a big undertaking. Maintaining and refinishing all that wood over the years is certainly something to consider when choosing a finish for these massive and towering timbers. As well as being easy to use, the finish should be safe for both the environment and those who take on the refinishing task.

Products That Protect Your Investment

Most commercial products contain driers to speed up the drying time of the finish. Typically, these finishes are mostly solvents with very little protective material and require a number of applications. This effectively seals the surface of the wood. The metallic driers are also toxic. These products are not a good choice for your timber frame home.

Choose a penetrating oil finish that is drier-free, so the wood has ample opportunity to absorb the oil. You should be able to apply it easily and quickly to a large surface, and excess product should be easy to wipe off without lap marks or a buildup of gummy residue on the surface of the wood. This type of natural oil finish continues to wick into the fibers of the wood long after the surface is dry.

Use only pure ingredients to ensure there is little discoloration over time. This kind of finish remains flexible, resilient, allows the wood to breathe, and absorbs into the cell structure of the wood.

Land Ark oil is a great natural product and is widely used in the timber frame industry.  Check it out at Heritage Natural Finishes.

With a central vacuum system, your workload has just gotten lighter. You’ll still need to clean as often, but since you merely carry a hose from room to room, you’ll be far more likely to tackle the job or get the kids to pitch in.

How A Central Vacuum System Works

A central vacuum system is basically a power unit that draws dirt and debris through piping in the walls to a central refuse storage container. There are inlets positioned along baseboards or on walls to which a portable hose and power brush are attached. This lightweight length of hosing and brush attachment is all the homeowner needs to vacuum every room in the house.

The debris winds up in a container or bag that only needs to be cleaned out or replaced every few months. Both the container and the power unit are situated in a remote location that’s away from the family living quarters.

There are also automatic dust pan inlets available for your kitchen, bathroom and mudroom. Simply tap a lever with your foot, and sweep dirt and debris into the slot. It connects to the power unit through the same tubing as the other inlets, and your dirt is sucked into the storage container.

Planning For Your Central Vacuum System

It’s far easier to install a central vacuum system in new construction than retro-fitting it into an existing home. When you’re designing your timber frame home, you should consider adding this unit during construction.

Locate the central power unit in an unobtrusive area of your home. This is typically the basement, garage or utility room. Tubing is run through the walls and floors of the house. Inlet valves are positioned in various locations along baseboards or on walls.

Since many timber frame homes have an open floorplan, it’s important to plan where you will position your tubing and inlets to ensure there are inlets available to reach all areas of your home.

Choosing Your Central Vacuum System

There are two styles of vacuum systems. They are filtered and cyclonic vacuum systems. Depending on the manufacturer, a filtered unit uses a screen, foam, paper or cloth device to clean and filter the air taken in by the vacuum. Naturally, these need to be cleaned or replaced. A cyclonic system uses centrifugal force and gravity to capture and separate the dirt and debris from the vacuumed air. In both systems the dirt is deposited into a storage canister or bag.

In selecting your central vacuum system, you need to consider the square footage of your home to determine the amount of power you’ll need. You also need to decide whether you want a bag unit that requires replacing a debris bag or a debris storage canister that needs to be emptied.

The power brush is what you are using to vacuum your house and it may be either electric or air driven. Since they don’t need electricity wired to each inlet, air driven systems are less costly to install.

Benefits Of A Central Vacuum System

Technology and consumer desire for “the best that money can buy” has driven up the price of many standard vacuums. This narrows the gap between the cost of a central vacuum system and a portable vacuum. This increasingly smaller gap makes a central vacuum system a realistic and cost-effective answer to house cleaning.

Central vacuums can have up to five times more power than a portable vacuum. Since they are stationary, the system has a far more powerful motor.

These units do away with the need to move heavy equipment from room to room and eliminate the need for cords and power outlets.

Dirty air is not recirculated in the room, keeping dust and contaminants at a minimum.
In general, central vacuum systems create less noise than portable vacuums. The motor is isolated from living spaces, so any noise is confined to the utility room, basement or garage.

Central vacuum systems offer the same variety of attachments and accessories found with standard vacuums.

If one day you decide to sell, this permanent addition may increase the resale value of your home, or at least be an attractive feature that entices buyers.

While planning your new timber frame home, you’ll come across countless ideas you would love to include in the design or décor. A central vacuum system may not be the most glamorous or sexy addition to your home plan, but it may be one of the most practical ideas for making your home easier to clean and enjoy.

• Chisels – :45
• Hand Planes – 2:14
• Measuring Tools – 2:47
• Bevel Gauge – 3:23
• Boreneman Layout Square – 5:12
• Chalk Line – 3:44
• Hand Saws – 5:36
• Mallet – 5:58
• Safety – 6:27

Video Transcript -

In this video, we’re going to answer a question that was posed to us on our Q&A site, and the question was, “What tools do you use as a timber framer?”

So I’m going to kind of break this series down into two different parts. The first part is going to be hand tools, and then the second part is going to be power tools. So, I went and grabbed my toolbox, and I thought I’d just go through it and talk about the tools that I have in it.

So I’ve kind of broken them up into four different sections. The first one is chisels. The second one is going to be planes. Then we’re going to talk about measuring and marking tools. And then there are some other tools that are mixed in here that are just simply indispensable, that you have to have.

Getting into the chisels, the first one that I grab, and it’s my go-to chisel, is my inch and a half chisel. I think if you are going to only have one chisel, this is the one for you. The one I grab like is the Barr chisel. It’s made in Idaho. It’s really high quality, and it’s fun to use.

The next chisel that I have is the three-quarters inch. Now, some people use a one-inch chisel, but I t bought a used one at a shop up in Maine that happened to be three-quarters, and I love it. It’s really good for getting into those tight spots that the bigger chisels can’t get into. The third one in my tool box is my corner chisel. This one’s good for taking out the corners on a housing or mortise. They’re difficult to sharpen, but they do make quick things of it.

The next one it’s not really a chisel, it’s called a slick, and they’re good for paring down tenens, or smoothing out timbers before you lay them out or something, something where you have to take a lot of material off really fast. It’s a rough tool that you can just remove a lot of material fast. This one is two and a half inches thick. This one is also Barr but you can pick these up used really easily. So those are the four chisels that I have. Occasionally, I have a two-inch chisel, but I don’t use it as much as that inch and a half.

So going into the hand planes that I have, the first plane that I have is a Stanley Number 3 bench plane. They’re very common. I bought this one for $12.00 used. I had to buy a new blade and a turn a new knob, but it’s worked great.

The next and last plane that I keep in my everyday toolbox is my low-angle block plane. This one is Veritas. It’s a little heavier than the Stanley, but as long as you keep them sharp, they’re just so much fun to work with. So those are the planes that I have. I only have two.

So getting into the measuring and marking tools, the first thing I want to talk about is the pencils. Usually, I like to use a hard lead pencil, and you can actually get carpenter pencils, hard lead, as well. They produce a nice, fine line that’s very nice to use to get accurate joints. The other thing I have is a nice, big marker for marking up timbers. Then, of course, I always have a razor knife to sharpen those pencils, or to score the lines before I cut them.

I have a bevel gauge, and this one is a Shinwa. This one’s for transferring angles from one timber to another timber, or from a timber to a saw. I have your standard tape measure. I always tend to gravitate towards the 25-foot one. It just feels really good in my hand. I have a chalk box that’s good for making long, straight lines. I do recommend upgrading the string from the Stanley, if you have it, you can upgrade it, and it really makes a nice, fine line.

I have this little square. I call it the Shinwa square. I don’t know the actual formal name that they have for it. It’s really good for truing up a saw, both on the 45 and the 90 degrees. I have a combination square, and I think if you’re going to – this is one of the basic tools that you must have. It’s good for measuring depths of mortises, or housings, or making sure that you’ve got everything back-cut appropriately, and it’s also just a great ruler.

Then I have a longer, 16-inch ruler that came off an old combination square that I had that broke on a raising, and this one has actually turned out to be indispensable. It’s a 16-inch tape, or ruler. I have two framing squares.

One is the standard, 24-inch one that you can find at most hardware stores. I did buy a stainless steel one that has black numbers on it, which really makes it a lot easier to read. The other one that I have is a small, 12-inch one that I’ve been made fun of a lot, just because of it’s size, but there are some times when that 24-inch one is kind of cumbersome, and this one is a great one just to grab.

The last square that I have is called a Boreneman Layout Square, and you can buy these at the Timber Framers Guild, and if you’re going to lay out an entire timber frame, this is a great tool to have, or if you’re in a shop where everyone has one, they just make quick work of laying out timbers, because you can have a nice reference line and everything stays the same throughout your mortises and tenets.

So there’s a couple of other tools that I find indispensable. One of them is a Japanese saw. What happens is, this one actually has a crosscut and a ripped saw. This blade is replaceable. If you’ve never used a Japanese saw, I would highly recommend you grabbing one and trying it out. They’re just a dream to use.

The last weird kind of tool is my mallet. This is a Wood Is Good mallet. It’s a urethane-coated mallet with a weight in it. I used a handmade one for years, and I had to keep making them, and then when I found this one, I grabbed it, and I started to use it, and wow, it’s just really nice. It makes it more fun. It gives a little, if you will.

So those are the major tools. The last two tools I want to talk about are really just safety items that I highly encourage you to use all the time. One of them is hearing protection. Any time I’m around power tools or anything loud, I put these one, and I think if you find if you start wearing them, and you take them off, and you’re listening to power tools, you’ll find that the whir of the motors is unbearable.

The last one, I always have safety glasses at hand. I have sunglasses and clear ones. Sometimes I have amber ones, just if the light is a little off, and I can’t stress enough that you wear eye protection at all times. You only have two eyes, and I certainly want to keep mine.