By Julia Ferrante
Sun Staff Writer
Sun photo by Julia Fenante
BUILDER
DON BARBER
Sun photo By Daniel Hyland
THIS 2,700-SQUARE-FOOT POSTAND BEAM home on Oaklawn Terrace, Westerly, is being built by Don Barber and his crew at Stonington Post and Beam. Barber and his carpenters hand carve the beams in their homes.
"We were walking around on this when it was nothing but an (open) frame," Barber says as he stands on the second floor of the house he is building on Oaklawn Terrace. Barber, whose company, Stonington Post and Beam, specializes in timber frame - or post and beam - construction, is building a 2-1/2 story house for John and Jeanne Stavros of High Street.
The 2,700square-foot house, which lies on a double lot on Oaklawn Terrace, will be what Barber describes as a "farm-style Colonial," with a breezeway, wraparound porch and attached garage. The exterior will be finished with cedar clapboards.
"It's traditional even down to the overhangs," Barber says.
From the outside, a post and beam home looks much like any other. It can be constructed in any style and built with most any kind of wood. The difference is on the inside.
"The reason you go with post and beam is to have bigger space," he says.
Since the timber frame, built with vertical and horizontal beams, literally supports itself, the builder has the freedom to add walls wherever the owner wants them or to keep an entire floor wall-free.
The upstairs will include three bedrooms, and two baths, with a fourth bathroom and a storage room in the basement. A "massive" fireplace will cut through the house, with its widest center in the living room, Barber says. The traditional post and beam, dating back several centuries, was a cooperative building method. As seen in the movie "Witness," where Amish villagers build a post and beam barn, the exterior walls of the house are built separately, then erected all at once. Once the outside panels were in place, the builder would cut out the windows and doors. Nowadays, wood distributors pre-cut window and door spaces. But Stonington Post and Beam follows the traditional method. "Our contractor would cut out the windows, but we don't like to do that," says Barber. "That way, if the owners want to change the blueprint (of the building) at the last minute, they can." After Barber and his crew install panels and a "Stress Skin," Styrofoam insulation, they rough cut the window openings. They then use a burning tool and skill saw for final shaping.
"I do all the design myself," he says. Barber learned timber frame con-struction while in the U.S. Army where he built timber frame bridges. When he worked for Electric Boat in Groton, he built a post and beam garage. He later went to the Thames Valley Technical College to learn architecture. With chisels and skill saws, Barber and his crew hand cut all the frame pieces and number them. The Stavroses hand-sanded and oiled the pieces and Barber and his crew notched them together. Wooden braces, in the shape of a tripod, add support to the frame and keep the house from twisting in high winds, Barber says.
Since the post and beam structure is intended to expose the entire wood frame of the house, one difficulty for the builder is concealing the plumbing and wiring.
To hide pipes and wires, the builder must either create a false floor or route the pipes and wiring through a chase, a dropped ceiling or exterior walls. In order to limit materials and labor, many designers opt to
In the Oaklawn Terrace home, the owners planned several bathrooms in different parts of the house, making it necessary for Barber to add a sub floor over the entire upstairs.
"That way they can put the plumbing wherever they want." Barber elected to use pine rather than oak for the beams and interior floor boards since it is a softer and cheaper wood.
"Pine is easier to work with," he said. "Oak costs more and it has a mind of its own. It twists and cracks more.
" Timber frame construction costs between 5 and 12 percent more than "stick frame" construction, Barber says. Stonington Post and Beam charges between $68 and $125 per square foot of construction.
"We use top-of-the-line everything," Barber said. Extra costs include wooden pegs used to cover nails in the frame. Traditionally, builders would not use metal nails.
The Stavroses, who are doing the interior decorating of the home themselves, probably will decorate with hard oak and tiles, Barber said. Stonington Post and Beam was contracted just to build a weather tight shell.
Barber expects to complete the structure in eight weeks.
