The Sunset Lake English Barn
July 2024
Our biggest and most thorough restoration to date, this project rescued a pre-1790 scribe rule English barn that was in severe disrepair. Featuring joweled posts, English tying joints, and board grooves for siding, this old gem was fortunate enough to be saved. We repaired original chestnut posts and girts and original spruce rafters and replicated a fourth bent in kind to return the barn's footprint to 30x40ft. We hewed replacement joweled posts from trees on-site and a simultaneous forestry project provided us with the floor system timbers and roof sheathing, subfloor, and siding.
Shop and House New Construction
October and December 2023
A special collaboration with some best friends, this ambitiously scaled shop and forever home measures 36x60ft. To achieve 12ft ceilings in the shop and a 7ft knee wall in the living space, we designed 6 king post trusses with raised bottom tension cords. We utilized a modified half-dovetail, pegged through-tenon with opposing wedge for the tension joint that intersects with the top chords.
This frame was predominantly comprised of locally milled Eastern Hemlock with mixed hardwood species for diagonal bracing and compressive members. This is a beautiful, robust frame with a 2,000+ sq.ft. vaulted, "loft"- like living space that feels both airy and intimate. The frame received Structural Insulated Panels for roof insulation and a full enclosure of ZIP insulated sheathing and rockwool infill insulation for a pretty low-input building.
Westmoreland Carriage Barn
May 2023
This was a small stabilization job in Westmoreland, NH. A beautiful circa 1840s square rule bank barn, its original design allowed for sliding pocket doors that passed between double posts on the roadside of both interior bents. Each bent had a pair of 4x8x14ft posts with a 4 inch gap between for the doors. Degradation of the roadside sill put increased roof thrust stress on these undersized posts, splitting and failing both exterior posts. We put in 30+ feet of white oak sill members and replaced the failing posts with more properly sized 9x10x14ft white pine posts. We rounded out the job with a small post bottom repair and a suite of subfloor stabilization in the understory. The barn and its shed addition now house an in-law apartment and overhead garage doors for winter parking and storage.
Crossroads Stall Barn
February 2023
Some quick barn archeology revealed that this classic English style circa-1840s 30x40ft barn had both been moved in full by oxen to its current site, but also during its lifetime had been disassembled and slightly modified. This modification likely occurred in the 1890s and, although effective in its goal to increase headroom in the hayloft, weakened its structural integrity. This modification would have likely been sound had it not been for a notoriously wet site that eroded its very simple stone foundation and ultimately its sills and a multitude of post bottoms. The restoration included jacking and shoring and repair of 10 post bottoms and the entirety of the sill and floor system. A thorough site work plan included grading and drainage and installation of pre-cast piers below frost. The barn now acts as our Headwaters shop and headquarters for shop repair-work and new frame construction.
Proctor House
September 2022
A special collaboration with friends (3 of whom had their first child during this job!), we were tasked with reworking a designed architectural floor plan into an integrated beautiful, structural timberframe home. This 2,000+ sq.ft new construction would act as a "T"- shaped addition to a historic circa-1840s Vermont village home. We really went for it in a lot of ways: full timberframe floor system, planed and hemp-oil finished locally sourced Eastern Hemlock and curvy cherry diagonal braces in the living space, and full Structural Insulated Panel insulated enclosure. The timberframed "bastard" roof system was the triumph and the result of a lot of math and head scratching and culminated in a 24-piece simultaneous assembly.