Project Information
Timber Framer:
Self Build – Mike DiMauro & Amanda Hayley
Designer:
Wood Species:
Pine, Spruce, Hemlock
Project Description:
We purchased the 28×20 Salt Box Plans from Timber Frame HQ in May 2021, after purchasing land in Blue Hill, Maine a few months prior. This was our first time timber framing, and to make the adventure even more exciting we lived in a tent for 8 months of the process.
Many of the timbers (pine and spruce) were sourced from our land (about 2/3 of the house’s board feet), the rest were purchased locally. We felled and chainsaw milled the timbers ourselves. To move our largest timbers from the woods to our home site required a work party of 16 friends and neighbors!
Amanda did all of the layout and planing, while Mike completed the joinery. We raised the first story with a gin pole (and tractor) and had a crane come to put on the top plates and rafters. The house was insulated from the exterior with recycled rigid foam, sheathed with 2×6 tongue and grove, and sided with cedar clapboards.
Video of the work party carrying the timbers out of the forest. https://www.instagram.com/p/ChZtQGvFssA/
Although we had limited construction skills at the start of our timber frame project, Mike’s background in primitive skills proved very useful. He is an outdoor educator and wilderness skills instructor and found timber framing more intuitive than stick framing , and his previous woodworking experience with bow and arrow making proved to be helpful.
