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Will this look funny? My brother-in-law finally spent some time looking at my plans for the addition to the house. the addition is a timber frame great room. (timbers 6 inches thick) and 6 inch thick sips.(structureal insulated panels) with the outside walls timberframed (English tudor style)with brick infills.
The total wall will wind up being 16 inches thick. (6″+6″+4″) My brother-in-law feels that the needed extension jams on the windows will “look funny”. Any comment? His qualifactions are decades of experiance as an archetec, typically schools. My opinion of his remodel efforts on his own homes isn’t very complimentary, but his tastes are differant then mine. on the other hand, he is a professional, I’m not. what is your opinion?
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I think it would help if you could flair the openings out wider inside, at least the sides. It would also keep you from losing so much natural light. If a man could just get his hands on some big ole wide burl oak lumber it'd make some great window stools:-]. Just kidding, is the new room where you were going to use the burl flooring?
Chuck
*Frenchy,I'm not a pro either. But, my house has thick walls as well. It is brick over balloon frame with plaster, not as thick as 16", but thick enough. I have window jambs extended about 6.5" with the stool/sill extended an additional 1" beyond that. Personally, I love having that space. It's great for a place to set a plant, a small radio, a book, etc. Additionally, the cat loves to jump on the sills and sit in the sun to look out on her domain. New houses have these fake sills where you're lucky to have enough space to set a pencil down.One other benefit is that, to me, the added depth presents an appearance of solidity to the walls of the house. It kinda makes you feel like you're in a castle, as opposed to living in a house of cards. But, this is all my uninformed opinion.Sean
*You bet! nice wide burl oak extension jambs. They will go nice with the burl oak floor and my 9 burl oak beams, but sorry I can't flare the sills out, I'm going to put windows in that will take up all the space between the timbers.P.S. I've given a few little cutoffs to the local woodworking store and they are using them for those pen kits. See, no waste!
*Sean, Thanks for the kind response. I really appreciate hearing from those with actual experiance.
*Frenchy,Thank you for this. I can see the room coming together and looking good with the sills matching the floor. This could actualy be a good thing.In my minds eye I see it looking best with just the sill matching the floor, not the sides or top. (Although, if the beams are also the same burl, the top of the window being skinned with that burl might also look good.) And maybe putting in a window a bit less wide so that you can flare, (rounded, not straight) the sides only. Not the top or sill.Anyway that's my minds eye, and as you said, we all have different tastes.
*Frenchy-you know the look you want and seems like you're questioning proportion. Nothing helps more than a mock up. Scale down and put something together- you will get a good idea how the full size model will feel...
*Doug, thank you, a great Idea. I did build a 1/4in.=1ft. scale model of the house both before and after. that helped me design it and I have a 1in.=1ft. wood model to plan exactly where the timbers go and how they would look ( I used the slab wood offcuts and ran them thru my planer to get them to scale )but I never thought about making a scale model to see how a feature like this would look.This is the reason I come on line for access to experts willing to share their time and opinions, thanks Frenchy
*por nada amigo
*an old design trick is to mock it up, and then photograph it. Models can still deceive you, but you can't tell how big something is from a photograph, so the truth comes out.
*Frenchy, I've seen "thick" exterior walls enchanced with shutters on the inside of the windows. The shutters are typically left open, and give a sense of meaning to the depth of the walls.Another design involved a fully paneled wall with the paneling detail wrapped into the deep window jamb extensions. Probably not desirable for every room, but looked nice in this den/library.Good luck, Steve
*sounds like a good place for love seats to me...why do the walls need to be that thick again?
*How about increasing the return on the i exterior of the windows some? With the windows inset some, they would get less exposure to the elements.
*Neighbors 1860 brick "revival" I guess they said, house has some monster thick walls. They have both of the features Steve mentions. Interior shutters that fold out of the sides. When shutters are open they appear as recessed panels that extend the jambs of the window. Very nice detail if you understand what I'm trying to describe.On my own home we have 10" walls downstairs. Flaired out the drywall returns on the sides and top 45 deg. about 4" and then straight returned them to the interior wall. Nice wide tiled sill. Lite comes in and highlights the offsets. No curtains. Upstairs walls not quite as thick. Flaired them also, but just the 45. Looks very nice with the angled flair on the circle tops. Had to help the drywall finisher cuz he hated the idea. Changed his mind when they were done.You could do anything you want with those sips, tho the inserts for the window framing as I describe would probably take some time. However, with a good view you would actually be framing natures picture. Why not go full bore. Best of luck.
*What do you think guys about Matts Idea? My first thought is that's great ,I like protecting the windows from the elements as much as possible... but then I drove by a house that someone did just that to and the house looked like it was a stone veneer job that someone just tacked on to the front of the house. Is there a trick or method to use to avoid that look? In other words, should the windows be inside the walnut beams or on the face of them? Set in or flush.P.S. I'm going to try Adrian's Idea of taking a picture of the model.
*If you recess the flanges of the window in any further than the outside plane of the framing you'll have a trickier flashing detail to keep water out of the walls. Like maybe a sloped soldered pan under each window. If I understand your wall detail, you'll have brick below the windows, right? And the windows would be mounted against the posts making the extension jambs 12", minus the width of the window frame [ 4 1/2" ?]. If this is right the X-jambs would only be 7 1/2" wide, alot better than 16".I'm probably totally screwed up though, if so disregard this post:-}Chuck
*with extra thick walls... like 7 inch... or in my office 12inch.. we set the window to the outside as per normal and wrap the skim-coat plaster to the window...the only detail is the sill...the walls can be splayed.. but if they were splayed i would probably use a panel detail like some of the stone farmhouses of pennsylvania..this detail was usually a hinged bi-fold interior shutter on each side..the wrapped drywall / skimcoat plaster is nice and clean.. and the wide sill is a good area for plants..the really wide ones we used pickeled strip oak flooring for the sills..i'm with chuck on the recess .. yur really askin for a lot of work if you set the windows into the wall...b but hey, whadda i no ?
*check out the last 'Houses' issue; p.117 shows patio doors set halfway into 16" rammed earth walls. I thought it said the windows were done this way also, but I can't find it.The flashing thing is a good point, but I would never do 14" or whatever extensions in solid wood unless it was frame and panel. Personal opinion only.
*How 'bout page 114. The window on the left.Rich Beckman
*Oooh...you're good, Beckman. And fast.
*It's pretty standard to have an exterior return of some sort on a building with a masonry exterior, and none with conventional frame construction, but I don't know jack about timber frame... Is that the same as post and beam? Sips - never used those either. It's really not clear to me exactly i howFrenchy is building and I definately didn't get the 6"+6"+4" thing.Another thing I have to wonder, is, how is the existing part of the house built?
*I guess I'm with you Adrian on the really wide panels here. With the big temp swings around a window I'm afraid of problems. How wide do you feel I can safely go? Around here we have -30 in the winter with an interior temp of +70 and just a R 2or 3 seperating them. Then what happens a few hours later with the sun streaming in, wow! what temp swings those boards will endure.
*Matt- Don't know anything about returns on building (does that mean you take them back to the lumber yard if you don't like them...:) but have checked into the terms timber frame and post and beam. To a large extent the terms are used interchangeably. However, some suppliers limit the term "timber frame" to those structures which use traditional mortise and tendon joinery whereas "post and beam" either is applied to those structures which use metal in joining the frame parts or is a more generic term which includes both types of construction. This is just my observation, however.
*Matt, I'm using 6" thick timbers, followed by 6" thick structural insulated panels and 4" thick exterior timbers (with brick infills) think English Tudor. The windows will fill the space between the timbers. The rest of the house is regular stick built and will stay that way untill I finish this addition. Then in the "wisdom" of my city council I can replace some more of the house. If I try to replace the whole house at once, I can't, the logic defys understanding.
*Casey, I'm sure Tedd Benson would agree with you on the definition of timber-frame but the American Institute of timber construction doesn't. Basically a timber frame differs in that a few large timbers replace many small "sticks". because of the massive apperance of those timbers they are exposed and become part of the design, rather then covering them with sheet rock.
*Calvin, Yeh, the view is Casco Cove on Lake Minnetonka. Fish jumping in the lake, birds nesting in the trees, and one damn beaver trying his best to kill every tree in my neighborhood!
*His wife sez that depends on what your definition of 'good' is...But he certainly is fast.: )
*Frenchy:OK, I'm starting to get the picture now. Sounds like the addition is going to be built like a fortress and be quite the cool looking structure - inside and out. You say:>"The windows will fill the space between the timbers."Does that mean the windows will be mounted to the exterior timbers? Or would they be mounted to the holes in the SIPs? I guess part of the problem is I also don't know i exactly what tutor style really is. I mean, I guess I've seen some around, but I think those were more where somebody slapped up some faux exterior beams on the gable ends, stuccoed in between and called it tutor. We don't see tutor too much here in the south.
*Frenchy,IMHO the deep window returns will look fine. If you look in Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language I'm pretty sure he describes deep returns as one of the desirable "patterns" of good dwellings. However, the detail you've got to think more about is where in the wall you locate the weather barrier. I would definitely not fasten the windows to the exterior timbers. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a water-tight seal between the windows and the exposed wood frame pieces. If I were going to try to fake a half-timbered brick-infill look I would make the entire exterior skin a decorative feature only and not try to make it weather tight. Let the weather barrier be at the plane of the insulated panels and mount the windows there. The other thing concerns the width of the exterior timbers. How wide do you intend to make them? In order to look historically accurate they should be between 9"-12" wide, depending on the size of the building. Just my $.02
*Matt G. Yeh, I've seen that phoney tudor style like you have too, and I've always thought it kind of cheesy. The original tudor was named after the limey that made it popular back in the 17th century. In England they built homes out of rather short timbers and infilled with mud and daube, later they discovered that made wonderful homes for mice and crawly bugs so they started to infill with bricks. The point is some of those old English timber frames are 500 years old. The British aren't the only builders of this style homes. For a while the Germans used to show off by building a house with a lot of extra wood. (kind of fluant it if you got it) The reason my walls have to be that thick is our cold winters, at least once a year the weatherman tells us that the wind chill is -65. that is why the sips, the timberframe on the outside is because I hate anything cheesy and the timberframe on the inside is so I have something to look at in my old age. (which, according to my 16 year old daughter is now) Anyway to answer your question the windows, were planned to be mounted on the sips but extended into the exterior timbers to be just short of flush with them. Since the exterior timbers would be lagged into the interior timbers, I felt the whole mess would float around enough to accomidate the fluctations involved.
*Gerry, The windows were planned to be mounted to the sips, but extended into the exterior timbers and then back into the interior timbers that frame the windows. Thus my vapor barrier will be the sips and the windows. I agree that the timbers should be wide but how wide is somewhat determined by the number of them and the size of the building.IMHO Since the longest exterior wall is 16' by 12' high I'm using 8" wide horizontal at the base, about 4' up and at the top. The vertical timbers are at 2' spacings and are 6" wide. The rafter tails are also 6" wide at 2' spacings, (I'm Glad Black Walnut only costs me .17 bd.ft.) I got to admit I'm temped to mill the saw marks off the outside timber and varnish them...But, 1. I'll be damned if I'll get out there every year and revarnish them like I have to with my Chris Craft & 2. that might be gilding the lily a bit. What do you think?
*If it were me, and I had tons of time, I would jack plane the visible surfaces of the timbers, removing all saw marks, and I'd consider a transparent stain to imitate whitewash or use whitewash and do it every year.
*Frenchy, I know Gerry isn't one to blow his own horn, but he is designing and detailing buildings everyday at Fortress Louisbourg, the largest historical reconstruction in Norh America. Big timber frames, piquet (sp?), I think some short-log, and other very traditional building techniques. He knows how it's supposed to look. That's just FYI. For what it's worth, I agree with him; inside and out, if you are building in that idiom, I think it should look authentic, which means marks from hand tools and the blemishes that come from that.
*As soon as I read that, Ii knewsomeone wouldn't be able to leave it alone!Rich Beckman
*Oh,i that'swhy he sounds like he knows what he's talking about!Rich Beckman
*You are right Gerry, "if I had the time" It will probably take me 5 years to get it done as is, then I have to do the lake side of the house. In the mean time I have to earn a living. Plus at 52 it takes longer and longer to get done the stuff I need to. Sorry if I was preaching to the minister. thanks for the input. I am interested in why you recommend to white wash them? I have never seen that done to European buildings, they seem to be painted a dark brown or black, but maybe it's just the oak turns black in sunlite after a few hundred years.
*LOLAnd you knew that 'someone' would probably be me.heheheMeantime, I am beginning to believe that anything Frenchy puts his hand to will end up looking 'funy'.Happy trails...
*Frenchy:Take some pictures during the construction process and post em here on the web. It will be a very interesting project.Good luck
*Oak exposed to water over a long period of time turns black.
*When the French brought their timber-frame building techniques with them 300 years ago it didn't take them long to realize that what worked in the old country was not going to stand up here. So they started trying to figure out how to make the buildings last longer. Siding, in the form of wide pine boards, so-called "Boston Boards", about 1 1/16" thick with edges bevelled at 45 degrees, was added to most timber buildings and even some masonry buildings. For those who couldn't afford siding, or paint, since it was scarce too(and didn't dry very well here) whitewash was a cheap alternative. But since it readily washed away in the horizontal rain we often get I imagine it didn't work all that well either. The dark coloured frames of England are painted and I‘m guessing it's purely an aesthetic decision to contrast the white lime-rich render which covered whatever material was used to fill between the timbers, be it bricks, rubble, mud/straw, wattle&daub, or piquets (stripped logs). With your exposed brick infill, which I assume will be dark red of some sort, I thought a white-ish frame would contrast well. It was just an opinion.At Louisbourg most of our exposed timber frames are eastern white pine. We have one exposed-frame house in white oak. It has been weathering now for 8 years and has taken on a beautiful silver-grey patina. In fact you'd be hard pressed to distinguish it from weathered pine unless you're close enough to see the grain.What little I know of this stuff is pretty specific to Louisbourg and France of the 18th C. Even at that I ain't no expert.
*Adrian, Thanks for the heads up on Gerry,He sounds like a neat guy to know. The only problem I have with following your suggestion is, since I need to use modern insulation and weather proofing, there is no way the house could be authentic, where do I draw the line? Well, that's a function of money, time, and effort. I like to look at original houses but I know that I'd hate to live in one. (as if she- who-must-be-obeyed would let me) As it is, with little help from other then my two young daughters I needed to make some serious decisions on which details to focus on and which were ignored.
*Thanks, Gerry for the information. I appreciate it. My first thought about your Idea to white wash the beams was, NO! TIMBERS ARE BLACK OR BROWN. But then I tried to visulise the white against the red and darn if that doesn't seem nice too! Now, do I ever have a lot to think about! For years I've thought dark but then dark agaisnt red brick won't be as visable as white against red.If I could find a clear coating of some kind to show off the timbers that wouldn't need repainting every year I'd probably go that way, but maybe....
*Frency- I make my room models 1" to the foot from 1/2" ply, which gives a scaled 6" thick wall and is easy to airnail together. It's a lot easier to make changes in the model, and most customers don't understand blueprints.