Traditional Style Timber Framing
Traditional Style: Straight, Simple, and Functional with Minimal Detailing
Included Styles:
Colonial, Federal, Georgian, Prairie, and Farm
Common Timber-Framing Characteristics:
Plentiful whitespace with familiar geometric shapes and sizes. Avoiding high timber population density.
Many times, we remove truss webs to keep things open.
Simple angles at beam ends, plain chamfering touches, and avoidance of heavy timber sizing also helps.
“Ho-hum, predictable, and boring.” Or, “The vanilla of building styles.” This perception is loosely associated with the word, Traditional. But then again, so is safe, reliable, and predictable.
In colloquial terms, Traditional style is perceived as the tried-and-true normal.
Architecturally speaking, Traditional style might include colonial-style, Federal style, George and style, or Prairie and Farm style. From both perspectives, Traditional Style tends to be some form of a boxy two story with different roof, post, and window treatments. So a project with clean simple lines, uniformed (often mirrored) design touches, with an old, familiar feel, might be good candidates for the “Traditional” style label.
