The Timbered Home brings timber-framing to more people by hybridizing with a post-frame enclosure system. Most timber-frame homes are brought up to modern standards for comfort and energy efficiency through the use of structural insulated panels (SIPs) attached to the outside of the frame. This approach works but at great expense and redundancy as you are building a house outside of a house. As the name implies, structural insulated panels are structural and can be used on their own to build a house. This building style renders many elements of the timber-frame ornamental. 

In a Timbered Home, 6x8 posts and trusses are spaced every 10ft, the 2x girts and purlins of post framing are attached to that and then standard sheathing. The result is a timber-frame home at a fraction of the cost.

The frame is made of local red or white oak. Trees are selected for their size, shape, and health. They are then milled into large timbers weighing 200-400lbs each. These timbers are brought into the workshop where they are worked with plane, saw, hammer and chisel. Elaborate hand-cut joinery creates interlocking wood connections that are pegged with oak pegs. There are no screws, nails or other metal fasteners used in post and truss joinery.

Timbers are then sanded, sealed and stored. When the foundation and building site are ready, the timbers and assembled trusses are transported to the site. Over the course of about a week, the frame is erected and attached to the foundation. Horizontally running double 2x4 girts and purlins are added to the outside, exterior doorways are roughed-in and the building is ready for sheathing.