The Meditative Craft of Timber Framing Retreat

Cost: $850

Our Timber Framing Workshops give you hands-on experience in timber framing – an ancient craft. This training offers you a unique opportunity to work with timbers in a mindful way. Enjoy being unplugged from your cell phone and discover the buried treasure a tree has for you.

For some, this experience could be a doorway into the rich world of wooden architecture and perhaps the beginnings of a career in timber framing. Regardless of your intent, the process of transforming a tree into one of the “bones” of a home is a magical privilege.

In this five-day workshop, you will review the history of timber framing and contemporary practices used to build modern timber frame homes. Students will learn the basic principles of crafting a timber frame and will develop the following skills:

Wood selection: Learn how to choose the right timber in the correct orientation to transform a tree into a structural member of a home

Shop drawings: Understand EcoNest's simple grid system of integrating the timber frame with the architectural plans. Isometric drawings are used to communicate joinery details.

Layout: Learn how to take information from drawings and accurately and efficiently transfer them to the timbers before cutting.

Joinery: Learn to precisely cut mortise and tenon joinery with hand and power tools.

Sharpening: Using Japanese water stones, gain proficiency in giving your chisels, slicks and planes a supreme cutting edge.

Assembly: Learn to perfectly mate and peg joints with wooden pegs and preassemble timbers into subassemblies called bents and walls.

Raising: Participate in the experience of erecting a timber frame and see your patient hand-work become a three-dimensional reality.

Register for our Meditative Craft of Timber Framing Retreat here. 

Please note: You will need to provide your own tools for this workshop, which typically cost between $300-$400. You will receive a detailed list of required tools upon registration.  Additional costs include your morning and evening meals and accommodation.