Project Steps

Download a flowchart of our
timber frame project steps (PDF 583 KB)

1. Meet with Frameworks Timber. During your visit to our shop you'll meet the team and take a tour of a finished home. Both are tools you'll find useful in discovering the process of timberframing. Your free initial consultation will also help determine what project steps are ahead of you and how we can help meet your building dreams. We'll also share preliminary budget guidelines with you and try to introduce some useful tips that will help your discovery and design process.

2. Choose your building site. You may have already finished this by the time we meet.  If not, we recommend locating property before design begins. Great buildings draw influence from their setting. Your next home should be no exception.

3. Begin Design. When you're ready to start converting your dreams into drawings, we'll be standing by to help. We offer an initial design contract for development only, and will begin to send emailed progress reports to keep you fully informed. If you need full architectural  design, we'll work with you to fill out a detailed questionnaire that communicates specific aspects of your vision to us as designers. If you already have an architect on your team and only require timberframe design, we'll skip the questionnaire and begin coordinating and communicating with the architect immediately. See our design page for more details on this exciting step in the process.

4. Build a Timberframs/SIPS Budget. As a final stage of your preliminary design, we'll build an accurate budget for the timberframe and the SIPS panels. Your initial investment in design will ensure a budget, timeline, and commitment from us that you can count on. If you're an owner/builder, we'll be glad to consult with you on total project budget as well. See our article Should I be my own GC?, and our Services page for more information about being an owner/builder.

6. Sign a fabrication contract. Now that you've built a timberframe budget and a total project budget that you're comfortable with, it's time to get rolling. Signing a contract should simply convert into writing what you expect from us and what we expect from you.  If you have any concerns about contracts, please let us know and we'll be happy to share a sample contract with you at any point in the process. It will allow us to officially schedule your timeframe and confirm your delivery date.

7. Order timber. Since your project will be completely custom, it's necessary to special order every timber list.  During the weeks it takes the sawmill to produce the timbers for your home, we'll be finishing construction drawings, and you or your general contractor may begin site work and early stages of construction.

8. We begin production. Once the timber hits our shop, production usually begins immediately. Most homes take between four and ten weeks for us to build in the shop. If site work and foundations aren't already in progress, they'll begin during our production phase.

9. Delivery and Raising. "Raising" day is an exciting event for you and for us. You get to watch your home move from a concept to a physical structure right before your eyes. Expect to be amazed and plan on a celebration. Give us a couple more weeks on site, and the installed SIPS will have you all but closed in.

10. Post raising service and consultation. Our job doesn't end at raising. We expect to be available and on site when necessary to help coordinate our work with all the other tradespeople still working on your house. Our design will have dealt with most of the interface between our product and other trades, but we're always available to deal with anything that comes up. If you're contributing some of the labor to your job, we'll expect to spend an hour here or there making sure it goes smoothly and according to plan.

11. Finish photos. Once the house is complete, we'll want to take photos of the finished product for our archives. We'll also have a poster for you of the best few photos we've taken of your house, nicely timber-framed. (The poster, that is!)