Not every timber job is a whole building. A lot of the work we like is a piece: a porch that finally has posts and a roof that belong together, an entry you walk through instead of a builder-grade stoop, a great-room ceiling you can see from the kitchen, a timber accent in a house that's already standing. That's additions and timber accents.
We work with homeowners, architects, and GCs in central Virginia and Northern Virginia. We'll travel for custom work. The frame is still mortise-and-tenon, hand or CNC, pegged. The difference is that it has to live with existing construction — floor heights, roof pitches, a wall that isn't square, a house that will not be rebuilt for the timber.
What this usually is
- Porches. A timber porch is a small frame tied to a house. It has to shed water, take screen or not, and not fight the existing eave. We cut the timber scope. Your GC still owns flashing, decking, and the rest of the envelope unless you hire that separately.
- Entries. Posts, a truss or a pair of rafters, a roof you can stand under at the door. Often the first timber a visitor sees. It should be joinery, not a glued-up beam from a lumberyard.
- Great-room ceilings. Exposed timbers in a room that's already framed, or a timber ceiling as part of an addition. Layout, species, and how the timber meets the drywall or SIPs matter as much as the joints.
- Outdoor structures and accents. Garden frames, small roofs, timber that does a job stick framing does poorly. If it's really a pavilion, see pavilions. If it's really a barn, see barns.
If you have an architect's drawings and need someone to handle the timber — shop drawings, fabrication, raising — that's a conversation we want. You do not have to hire us for the whole house.
Kit-scale and custom
We don't sell a stock addition kit. The live kit is the Nelson Cottage, a 20′ × 24′ house. An addition is custom by nature: it has to fit a building that already exists. Kit-scale thinking still helps. A simple porch bent, a modest entry truss, a ceiling with a clear bay spacing — those are better than a timber explosion on a ranch house. We'll push toward the smaller honest frame when that's what the house can carry.
Joinery and species
Mortise-and-tenon, pegged. Cut by hand or CNC. We work in Douglas Fir, White Oak, Yellow Cedar, and Cypress, and we prefer local and regional timber. On an addition, species has to match the house as well as the loads: color, grain, how it will sit next to painted trim or existing beams. We'll look at photos. Send them.
Raising and drafting
Raising an addition is often tighter than raising a barn. Power lines, a finished driveway, a family still living in the house, a crane that has one shot at the only lawn. We plan that. We can raise, or we can write the sequence for a GC who has a timber crew.
Drafting may be the whole job: permit drawings for the county, shop drawings for a shop, piece tickets for the framer. Architects and other framers hire us for that. DIY owners do too, when they're enclosing their own addition and need the timber set to be real. Drafting.
Who this is for
People who already have a house in central Virginia and want timber in it, or on it, without a full design-build. GCs who need a timber sub who will not disappear after the bid. Architects who want joinery that matches the drawings. If you need a whole cottage instead, start with the Nelson Cottage. If you need a custom frame from the ground up, start on Craft.
Send the site, photos of the existing building, and any drawings. Contact · (434) 305-2062 · craft@oakandclay.com