we actually did it!
All dolled up just in in time for the holidays!
It’s official! She’s up and we actually timber framed a commercial building! I think we can officially call ourselves timber framers now, right?
That statement might sounds like a pretty bizarre thing to say for people who have, well, just put up a timber framed commercial building, but, quite frankly, there were a lot of moments where we didn’t know if we would make it. We entered into an agreement with the owners to build this thing 1.) having never done a commercial building, 2.) having never owned/operated a sawmill in our lives, 3.) having absolutely no idea how to timber frame. Like, at all.
What can we say? One year ago we were full of optimism and all the romantic notions that come with this dreamy potential of learning to take trees and build them into a towering monument that would withstand the test of time and would ultimately become part of this community’s history. To be fair, we weren’t dumb enough to think we could tackle this all by ourselves having no clue how to do any of this. We bravely marched into this because we completely catfished by a “timber framer” who sold us on this grand notion that he would mentor us throughout the entire process having “done many himself.” He assured us that he would generously pass along all his wisdom and knowledge he’d accumulated over his entire career of timber framing. What possibly could go wrong? It sounded like the deal of a lifetime.
If only that’s how it actually unfolded…
It all started crumbling practically immediately. Promise after promise, guarantee after guarantee, and all of it was a lie. We had risked absolutely everything on this build because of this fraud, only to be left with two options: we were either going to lose absolutely everything we had worked so incredibly hard for, or we were going to figure this out ourselves and make this dream come true. And we did.
We spent months working 80 hour weeks, hustling our butts off, determined to figure this thing out and make it work. We researched like crazy, reading books upon books, scouring the internet for articles, watching videos, and then going out to test it in real life. We constantly felt like we were on the cusp of drowning in stress and would end each day curled up in bed congratulating each other for having survived another day. Somehow, we made it. I genuinely don’t know how. We finished the last beam the Tuesday before Thanksgiving of 2023. 20 weeks later than what we were promised it would take to finish doing all the beams.
Us the day we finished the last beam! So tired and exhausted but so much relief :’)
We started raising the Friday after Thanksgiving and while we are still putting the finishing pegs in, the bulk was done over the following 3 weeks. It felt like a fever dream watching it all come together. But we did it.
If you would have told us a year ago that this is how 2023 would have gone, we would have told you that you were absolutely crazy and that any of it was too absurd and far fetched to be real and would never happen. That people who scour the earth for naive and innocent prey only exist in the movies. That people aren’t actually that maliciously conniving and cruel all for the sake of taking pleasure in the demise of others.
But we survived. Somehow we taught ourselves how to do every. single. thing. We prevailed despite massive odds against us. And now we have this stunning, huge building to show for it. And she is all ours. Our labor of love, our devotion to this craft, our gift to the community. And all we ask is that you cherish her deeply. Dan painstakingly milled every single piece of the frame and siding and paneling with his own two hands. He touched every tree and turned it into something beautiful. Our engineers obsessed over every joint, making sure it would be strong for centuries to come. I laid out every single beam and joint to half a millimeter so that it would be cut to perfection. And our amazing team of subcontractors (a full time firefighter who generously gave us his off days, two high schoolers who gave us their precious summers, and a passionate woodworker who came every single week from Minnesota!) cut each beam to perfection, making sure to take the utmost care following razor thin lines.
I hope people generations from now will be able to feel the love and care that went into this building. She is a monument of perseverance, strength, and love. And now as much as she is ours, she is yours, too.
Enjoy.
d & r