We don’t impose our ideas – it’s not our approach to have ‘in-house design styles’, churned out on a production-line basis. We believe that you expect much more – an outstanding oak timber-framed building of great individual beauty.

For most people, there are few things as important, challenging and daunting as embarking on building their own oak timber-framed home. Of course, our role is to design and build the oak timber frame, but we see our responsibilities to you as being much wider than this.

There are many elements which need to be exactly right for an oak timber-framed building to be totally successful. If you have not approached an architect and have broad ideas of the building’s goals, we will work to understand what you are seeking, to provide help, advice and to assist in selecting the most appropriate architect.

Help with the design and oak/timber selection

You and your architect can draw on our considerable experience; this will help to develop an oak timber-frame design which is exactly right. Our expertise proves invaluable also when selecting the timber for your project. Our selection process is meticulous, since, if the timber isn’t exactly right, the building is flawed from the outset. Our timber standards build on, but exceed, the British standards, so we work only with those timber suppliers which can meet our own exacting specifications.

An oak timber-framed home should not be based on compromise

Continuity of expertise

It’s not uncommon for building projects to use different teams – and people – at various stages, who may never directly communicate. That’s not our way: we allocate a team and a team leader at the outset of each project, with that team remaining in place until completion. This ensures total continuity of expertise, from one end of the project to the other. It also allows a stronger rapport to be developed among us, the architect and you – and provides far greater ownership and responsibility. 

Care and attention to detail

At each stage, we pay close attention to every detail, from checking the timber initially (ensuring that it meets our standards) and allocating different types and grades of timber to the most appropriate part of each project to finding the best way to exploit the different characteristics of the timber.

We don’t use low-skilled production methods, such as CNC (computer numerical control) equipment, as this results in oak timber frames without personality – which also don’t perform as well as a craftsperson-built oak timber frame, in the long term. Our considerable experience in oak frame conservation, restoration and repair gives us a unique understanding of how green oak timber frames perform over a long period, since we are as used to working with oak timber frames hundreds of years old as we are working with new ones.