Happy New Year, dear readers.
It’s been an eventful year. Recently, we achieved a substantial amount of “visual progress” on our ongoing timber frame pavilion project — we raised the frame, finally moving pieces out of the big tent and into the field for assembly and lifting them up into their final resting place.
And it feels really, really good to be at this stage in the game.
The bustling summer and fall seasons are finally coming to a close. We just wrapped up our final Natural Building Essentials Workshop a few weeks ago, gardening season is long past, and it’s nearly time to start hatching plans for 2023 already. It’s been a year to remember.
This has been the busiest winter in a long time. It’s all good stuff, but the window of opportunity to appreciate some downtime is narrowing before a busy spring and summer season. Enough of that, though. I’m here to share some details about our upcoming Japanese Carpentry Workshop project.
Back in July, April and I debated about how the roof decking should complement the stained timber frame in our outdoor kitchen. At first, we considered some kind of white paint treatment on the roof deck, but I was never sold on the idea. Long story short, we decided to do a total 180 on the whitewash idea — I charred cedar instead, yakisugi style. Here’s how it looks.
The timing of our most recent Timber Frame Workshop worked out perfectly. We were able to spend the entire final day raising the small outdoor kitchen timber frame. Despite the intense heat of the day, we pulled it off without incident.
What a thrill to go from raw timber to a finished structure in a week — there’s really nothing better than standing back and seeing all of your hard work pay off. Especially with the help of a bunch of great people…
Several years ago, I learned how to scribe wood to stone and have been patiently waiting for the opportunity to implement this feature in my own building project. The premise is simple — copy the rough surface of a stone plinth to a wood post for a seamless fit. This gives the impression of a timber or wood post “growing” out of the stone foundation. It’s a beautiful look, used in old building foundations especially in the Japanese “ishibatate” style.
The recent outdoor kitchen timber frame was the perfect chance to implement this technique. Here are the steps for scribing wood to a stone foundation.
I’ve been excited about building a timber frame outdoor kitchen since we moved to this land in 2015. It’s taken until this summer to get started but for good reason(s). The scope of the project has evolved to include a patio with dry stone retaining walls, which will be a vast improvement from the previously uneven slope that unceremoniously terminated at the back of the house porch.
Our 2019 Timber Frame Workshop brought the 10×16 outdoor kitchen frame to completion in 7 days. We had 15 participants from across the country — Maryland, Oregon, Washington, Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, and more… Here’s a glimpse at our first few days together working on the small oak timber frame.
The best part of timber framing is, of course, the finished product. Raising up a timber frame is an exciting prospect, even a tiny project like this. I finally had time in the late summer and early fall to wrap up work on the charred oak timber frame that our intrepid students started in our summer Timber Frame Workshop. My excitement hit a peak when the day came to stand things up.
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Yakisugi is a traditional method of wood preservation. Charring wood is not specific to Japan, but charring sugi (Japanese cypress) for cladding use is a traditional feature of some Japanese architecture. It’s been used primarily for practical reasons — charred wood is less susceptible to rot and moisture damage, insect damage, and ironically enough, it’s more resistant to fire. Plus, it looks pretty badass if you ask me.
I first saw a video of a guy burning sugi boards several years ago and was entranced. I knew that I wanted to try it sometime, and I decided to use our first timber frame as an experiment. So I bought a torch and lit up our white oak timbers. Read ahead for more…
If you’re thrifty and building a timber frame structure for yourself, you’re most likely going to buy green (or unseasoned) timbers from a local sawmill. If you’re lucky, you might acquire timbers from a bandsaw mill, which produces relatively clean cuts when compared to a circular sawmill. However, if you’re not partial to the rough sawn look and texture, you have a few options to smooth and finish the timbers. Perhaps the most economical option is to plane the timbers yourself, but how?
6×6, 8×8 and larger sized timbers can be intimidating to consider planing. There’s always a hand plane, but that is challenging work for more than a few pieces or tough wood like oak. I was faced with this dilemma and opted for the electric hand planer route, picking up a Triton TPL180. The TPL180 is a 7″ wide electric hand planer designed for large dimension lumber. Here are my impressions of the tool.
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This website is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. In 2012, we started offering Natural Building Workshops, so you can learn essential hands-on skills to build your own natural home.
