Timber Frame Homes | Hand Crafted Joinery

Timber Craftsmanship

We use people, not machines, to craft your timber joinery.

Every timber that goes into your home is hand-crafted by our shop team at our headquarters in Western New York. Unlike post and beam homes, our timber frame designs rely on joinery techniques that utilize hand-cut mortise and tenon connection joints.

We begin with responsibly sourced timbers, which are cut to length based on production drawings created by our design department. Depending on the location and use of each timber, our framers will carefully mark out the joinery dimensions and begin cutting.

Shaping joinery out of a full timber is a process of reduction. We start with the biggest saw in the shop and whittle your timbers down, progressing from power saws and drills to hand chisels and mallets as the intricacies of the timber frame emerge.

By using these traditional timber framing methods we create a home rooted in nature and in centuries of craftsmanship. See for yourself in our timber frame image gallery. These techniques are on display in every joint and timber, creating a one of a kind home that will last generations.

Timber framer cuts joinery into eastern white pine with a chain mortiser — Our shop timber framer, Nick, cuts joinery with a chain mortiser.

timber framer marks a curved cut line along a length of eastern white pine — A.J. eyes one up. We craft all of our timbers by hand at our shop outside of Buffalo, NY.

timber framers cut joinery at Timberbuilt shop — Timberbuilt framers finishing beams and marking out the joinery.

Timber assembly

After the joinery is cut and chiseled, our framers assemble your timber frame inside our shop. We use a combination of clamps and manpower to pull the frame together until we’ve confirmed a perfect fit. Every joint is tested, including every post, girt, joist, and truss.

an assembled timber bent held together with pipe clamps — A timber bent held together with pipe clamps during our test-fitting process. All of your timbers are fitted in our shop before they arrive on your property for reassembly by our field crew.

Nick and Miguel test the fit of a timber bent before drilling the peg holes.

Timber Finishing

Once a precise fit is assured, the timbers are marked with an identifying number at their ends so they can be efficiently reassembled during the on-site construction by our travel team. Then the timbers are finished — a process that includes routering the edges, sanding, and staining with a color of your choice.

Once the stain is dry your timbers are carefully loaded onto a truck for delivery to your build site — anywhere in North America.

Our field crew gets a lot of well-deserved credit for assembling a house in a week or two, but that’s only possible because of all the hard work from everyone at the shop beforehand.