Blog — Timber Frame RSS

Yesterday’s progress. Praying that the rest comes down smoothly today.   – Joshua  

This week has been intense so far. We have all been pushing the available light hours this week trying to get this barn frame disassembled in an orderly and efficient manner. On Tuesday, I pulled sheathing while Julia, Eden, and our friend Rachel de-nailed the boards as they came off. I also began taking down a few of the addition’s sawn rafters. As progress moved along on the barn, Mike C was back at home negotiating an Issue Eleven freight shipment debacle. Delay after delay. Wrong phone numbers. No one knows what’s going on. The driver left. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. But MC is persistent and was finally able to get them to deliver yesterday morning and got it all...

I can admit that some people might think I have a problem with my relationship to timber-framed buildings. My woodshop is a 1790s Vermont frame, my blacksmith shop is a hand-hewn Charpentier sans Frontières frame, our newly built cottage is a modern rough-sawn frame I bought third hand from a friend, and six years ago, my wife Julia and I took down an 1810-ish cape cod house to restore for our home. When we took it down, we swept in to save it from bulldozing, but we were not ready to put it up right then. We knew we needed at least few years of preparations to get things in our life ready for such an undertaking. We’re finally ready....

  Today is the last day to order the Another Work is Possible book-and-film bundle for the discounted rate of $63. Starting tomorrow, Saturday, Feb 1st, the only option to purchase these products will be as individual items at full price.   You can order them individually now at these links below: The book alone is $50. The film alone is $25   Mike and I wrapped up copy reading the book this afternoon, and it’s going out to the printer on Monday morning. We are so proud of everyone that helped put this book together, and know that if you are into what we publish in the magazine, this book will be right up your alley.  We thank you...

This has been an insanely busy season for me. This past September, soon after Charpentiers Sans Frontières (CSF) left our place after constructing our hand-hewn blacksmith shop, I hit the ground running to write and organize the book that captured all that was bursting inside my mind. I had been studying and reflecting on the value of manual craft work for a long while before the project, but when this team of carpenters arrived and set to work, I realized that I was witnessing one of the most powerful examples of it I’d ever seen. Watching 35 carpenters from all over the world hew freshly felled logs into timbers, then joining and raising them with nothing more than the strength of...

The moment has finally come! Starting right now, we’re kicking off the “Another Work is Possible” book pre-order and film release as a bundled package at a discounted rate of $63. This offer will be good for two weeks – January 17th - 31st. After that these products will only be sold separately for full price: the book is $50 and the film is $25. Get your popcorn buttered and your pastis poured… the film is now available for immediate streaming and download. The book will be shipping out near the end of March. You can now order your copy of the book and film here. Enjoy, my friends!  – Joshua  

For those of you that have been asking for details about ordering this book and film, this announcement is for you: We’re going to be kicking off the first two weeks of the Another Work is Possible book pre-order and film release as a bundled package for a discounted rate of $63.00. This offer will be good for two weeks – January 17th-31st. After that time, these products will only be sold separately for their full price: the book is $50 and the film is $25.  When can you order? Well, because we miss those crazy midnight releases we used to do, we’ve decided to open orders at 12:00 a.m. Eastern time zone on January 17th. This means that you...

OK. I’ve kept this a secret for four months, but now I’m finally spilling the beans… During the last week of August, a French team of historic timber framers named Charpentiers Sans Frontières (CSF) “Carpenters Without Borders” will be flying out to our place in Maine to spend a week hewing, joining, and raising a 16’ x 26’ timber frame for us. This outbuilding adjacent to our woodshop will be part woodshed, part storage building, and part blacksmith shop. This team of incredible carpenters, led by François Calame (ethnologist in the Ministry of Culture in Normandy), was written about by Will Lisak in M&T Issue Four as a reflection on his experience with them at their project in Romania. The entire frame...