A barn, a shop, a run-in, a small farm building with a timber frame you can see — that's the work. In central Virginia those buildings sit on real land: a slope, a driveway that isn't a job-site road, a pad that has to take snow and summer storms. We design and cut the frame for that. We raise it when you want us there. We draft it when you or another shop will cut.
This is small and custom, not a carriage-house catalog. We are not trying to be the cheapest shipped barn, and we are not trying to be an estate builder. The joinery is the same either way: mortise-and-tenon, hand or CNC, pegged.
Kit-scale and custom
Our live kit is the Nelson Cottage — a 20′ × 24′ house frame, not a barn SKU. A lot of barn conversations start at that kind of scale anyway: a compact shop, a two-bay, a building you can raise without a standing army. If a kit-scale frame would do, we'll say so. If the bays, the loft, the lean-to, or the way the barn meets an existing house won't take a stock plan, we draw a custom frame.
Custom barns start with use. Animals, machines, hay, a workshop, a party once a year — those loads are not the same. Tell us the truth about use. A pretty barn that can't take a tractor is a failure we can avoid on paper.
Joinery, species, timber
Traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery holds the frame. We cut it by hand or CNC and peg it. That's slower than metal-plate barns. It's also a frame you can read, repair, and still like when the siding has been replaced.
We work in Douglas Fir, White Oak, Yellow Cedar, and Cypress, and we prefer local and regional timber. A barn in this part of Virginia can often take regional wood. When it can't — length, grade, budget — we say so and source what the structure needs. Species is a structural choice first.
Raising
Barn raisings are the picture people have of this trade, and for good reason. Bents go up, the building gets a spine, and by evening you have something that wasn't there in the morning. We coordinate crane, sequence, and crew. On a small frame that can be a tight day. On a larger one it takes a plan. Either way, don't improvise it. Hire us to raise, or hire us to draft the raising for a builder who has done it.
Drafting
Architects, GCs, other framers, and DIY owners use us for permit drawings, shop drawings, and piece tickets. A farm building still has to get through the county. A shop still has to be cut accurately. If you have a design and need the timber set drawn, that's drafting. We will work from your sketches. We will also tell you when the sketches aren't a building yet.
Who this is for
Owners and builders in central Virginia (Charlottesville, Nelson, Richmond/Hanover, Lake Anna) and in Northern Virginia — and farther when the frame ships. People who want a timber barn or shop that belongs on the land, not a metal building with fake trusses bolted under the ridge. If you need a house-scale cottage instead, look at the Nelson Cottage. If you need a porch, an entry, or a ceiling in a house that's already there, that's additions.
Send the site, what the building has to do, and any drawings. Contact · (434) 305-2062 · craft@oakandclay.com
Also: custom craft · central Virginia