post and beam connections chapter 2

I know what you are thinking, what ever happened to that terrific sketch Michael made? The one with the post and the beam and the bits of steel?

Et voila.

This is Dean.  Like a lot of professional builders, he starts building his house at the top and works his way down.

For this tricky bit, he had to support the verandah with his head until Jess had finished preparing the post.  Due to a frightful domestic dispute over a table saw, a drill bit and a chemical anchor, she decided to take her time.

This is Dean on Day Two.

When it was all over, it looked like this.  For any architects out there, some of you are thinking, "Mmmmm sexy."  The rest of you are wondering what all the fuss is about.  Well for me it's about a kind of fabricated honesty.  We know that we need big bits of timber to hold up the verandah, and we know that they are held together with a truckload of fixings, so sometimes it feels more honest to express the grain of the timber and the strength of the fixings by making them visible.  But it is a fabricated honesty, because we want the bolts and the plates which hold it all together to be deliberate and beautiful.  They look lean and ordered, even if the job they do is over-designed and inefficient.

 Jess and Dean then moved inside.  The kitchen post went in amid much measurement, re-measurement, checking, re-checking, drilling, re-drilling, and a fair bit of discussion.  We are very happy, and looking at a fine chunk of timber, and a sweet piece of steel.