Timber Frame Barn Construction in Sagle, Idaho

Scott Herndon Homes was the designer and contractor of this 1200 SQF timber frame barn/storage building. The building is 30 feet by 40 feet and has an 8/12 pitch gable roof, which is conventionally stick framed on a 6x full dimension circular and band sawn Doug Fir timber frame structure placed on concrete piers and a small stem wall for the secure tack room.

There is some confusion about what a timber frame building is versus post and beam. We do both types of buildings, but the difference is this - timber framing involves creating framed structures of heavy timber jointed together with historical pegged mortise and tenon joints. It is an old craftsman specialty that yields a beautiful building with lots of tradition. It requires great skill and is a time consuming process since each timber member may have multiple joints that need to be laid out and created with specialized tools. Post and beam construction involves heavy timbers joined with steel straps, bolts and nails. It is usually far less time consuming to build than a timber frame but can yield beautiful results as well.

The timbers for this timber frame barn were obtained onsite and from Specialty Beam in Heron, MT. We have our own Wood Mizer LT40 portable sawmill that was was used to create some of the timbers for the frame from trees felled on this homeowner's property. The timber frame joinery was completed by our craftsman on site in about 5 weeks.

Woodmizer sawmill

For this building we framed the timbers on poured concrete piers and the secure tack room on a traditional concrete stem wall and footer.

barn timberframe

timberframe bent

After a few bents were erected, it was time to set some of the 20' beams to tie those together:

timberframe beams

The tack room was a typical stick frame, though custom milled frame members were used. The crafstman can be seen in the following photo using a chain mortiser on a timber:

timberframe chain mortiser