design

Whether you are building a small barn or outdoor pavillion, full timber frame home or a hybrid home with select timber frame areas, the Cowee Mountain Timber Framers design team can work with you in designing your custom residential timber frame. From a fully drafted floor plan to a simple concept/sketch that you have been forming over time, we can work with you and your ideas to produce a custom timber frame design meeting your aesthetic and/or economic needs. From planed and chamfered douglas fir to rough sawn eastern white pine, we can help you find the best possible wood species, finish, and embellishments, best suited for your project.

Also, take a look at our plan portfolio for an example of what floor plan arrangements are possible with our standard frames.

standard frame design

Our Standard Frames are economical for they hold a simple shape, reducing labor costs for cutting complicated joinery. They also bypass the costs associated with designing a custom frame. Simple framing options offer the dramatic affects of a timber frame home while keeping budgets in line. Our Standard Frames come in 24' or 28' dimensions, and can be combined with other elements, such as shed additions or raised knee walls, to create extra space that you may require from your frame.

Standard Frame

28' Standard Frame

fabrication

At Cowee Mountain, our skilled craftsmen, apprentices, and students fashion one frame at a time. We work primarily with green timber, both planed and rough sawn, and can cut frames fram a number of wood species including Oak, Eastern White Pine, Yellow Pine, Cypress, Douglas Fir, and Cedar. Our shop can perform chamfering, curved bracing, and other decorative embellishments to your frame. To make our frames cost efficient, our apprenticeship program exchanges labor for education, helping to reduce the labor costs of our frames. Homebuilders/contractors also have the opportunity to have their frames cut at a reduced cost during one of our quarterly workshops.

erection

Since its founding in 1998, CMTF has raised well over a hundred frames all across the country, from Colorado to Delaware. Depending on the location of the building site, we can send out a few of our people to work with your local crew.