A little about my timber frame garage-

Firstly, sorry about the fuzzy photos. I made the timber frame garage webpage in 1998 and at that time I had a poor Kodak digital camera. You'll note an improvement in my later sections. When we moved into our new house I needed to build a garage to house the Ferrari. I had years ago decided that if I was ever to build a garage that it would be a timber frame type. I liked the look and feel of timber frame construction. The cost was not much more than conventional methods since I would do the work myself. I didn't like the look or feel of 2x4 construction. The garage turned out larger than I intended. It ended up as a garage/workshop/artists' building with a full second floor. Timber beams and rough cut lumber were used through out. Much of the joinery is done with traditional mortis and tenon methods- wood pegs and all. All of the work I have done myself with the exception of raising the roof beams and raising the wall assemblies. I wanted a structure with some character and warmth. The building measures 24 X 30'. The lower level serves as a garage for the 3 cars and the upper level is a continuous rough cut birch deck. No heat. Just electrics and water is planned. It is open to the oak beamed metal roof. Part of the building is made out of yellow pine barn beams that I had salvaged from a fallen barn built in the 1800's. Since I didn't have enough old lumber to complete the building half of the stuctures is post and beam type with new 6X6" oak posts and beams. The point isn't to finish it. I want to enjoy the process too. Working on the garage is therapeutic in a way. I don't suppose it will ever be fully finished. .............Photos Below...........

Screwing down the metal roof. I like the sound of rain on a metal roof and it seemed appropriate for a barn. That's me up there with a "safety rope" tied around my waist. Probably would have cut me in half if I had fallen. It was a little unnerving up there at first but I got used to it.
Wood Beaver using the Lost Magellan method of carpenter square dead reckoning. Actually I check the levelness of the half dovetail pocket with the square. The collar tie fits snuggly (see photo at right) into this pocket.	Red enamel over galvalume metalizated roof. Allison playing on some oak posts.
Collar tie and roof beams. Whoops. The wooden mallet is obscuring your view of the "half" in the half dovetail joint. Darn. Anyways,... Note the wood removal tools- 1. Four inch belt sander. 2. My grandfather's Porter Cable circular saw. 3. One inch commercial drill. Burned the sucker up in the course of building the barn.	Wild drill- Once that big two handled drill slipped out of my hands while I was drilling a one inch peg hole. Scared the daylight out of me as it tore from my hands. I hit the switch lock button by accident and the stinker tore from my hands as I tried to unlock it. Too late! It was spinning around on its own- bit stuck, drill spinning! Just missed my knee too. The extension cord wrapped around the bit in a spiraling death tangle. I sort of j ust stood there in shock and amazement during the whole extraveganza. The drill then came to an abrupt halt as the cord tangled. Just sort of sat there and smoked and moaned until I unplugged her. That was the beginning of the end for that drill. You can see me drilling a mortise below. Held on tight that time.
Dry fitting the assembly on the ground. After you chisel out the mortises and cut the tenons it is necessary to dry fit the pieces together on the horizontal ground. There is plenty of assembly and disassembly and trimming("tweaking"). The knee braces have to meet the posts and beams perfectly. And it must be perfect both for strength and so that the beams are level. Also it would be nice if the two halves of the building met in the middle! It is tedious but fun too.	Drilling and chiseling out some mortises. Chiseling is fun if the chisel is nice and sharp. It will slice through this 300 year old yellow pine. You can actually push the chisel through the wood with your hand when going with the grain. Cross grain is mallet only. That's a knee brace tenon sticking up in the air. Those were a little tricky. There was angles, thicknesses and lengths to sneak up on. It took all summer to cut them and the others in my spare time. See the big notch in the beam in front of the drill? A beam fits into that. It is called "fully shouldered". Put your head on my shooooulder Whisper in my ear...baaaaybeee. Oops.
Placing the concrete slab.That's me and steve. This is our Chippendale outfits. My boots are by Bruno Magli. Its called concrete. Don't say cement . Cement is just the powder stuff that acts as the glue. Concrete has sand and aggregate in it. This is 2500lb concrete. It is softer than usual but on the other hand it won't crack as much. I had a near catastrophe as it rained hard after the truck left. I covered it in plastic but the finish on this half wasn't as nice as the other half you see.
Go to section 2 of Timber Frame Garage