Rattlesnake Remodel

This a remodel that we just finished in the Rattlesnake in Missoula, MT.

Before the remodel, the living room and kitchen were too crowded. So, to start, we created more of an open floor plan by tearing out several walls.

We then placed 8x8 posts in visually pleasing spots to provide structure and a feeling of some mass. The 8x8 posts were fashioned from coastal Douglas-fir. We built the new cabinets out of quarter-sawn white oak and the counter tops out of hard maple. The floor is hickory and provides nice visual contrast.

Most often we build custom doors for our projects. This time, the budget didn't allow for that, so we ordered all new solid Douglas-fir doors to replace the existing ones. We also installed all new trim (V.G. larch).

In the end, the kitchen and living area were transformed completely; an open floor plan makes for great living and provides a wonderful space for entertaining.

About Pfiffner Design Build

Building a custom home can be a daunting task. At Pfiffner Design Build we have the experience and expertise to communicate with professionals from across the trades to help simplify this process for you. Using old-world techniques and modern ingenuity, we find simple ways to build beautiful things, uniting functional demands, complex designs, and our client's vision. Like our clients, we believe in quality and individuality. Our work reflects our passion, unique skill set, and commitment to excellence. Every client and every batch of timbers says something a little different. We listen to our client, the wood, and the landscape to construct exceptional custom doors and timber frame homes.

Cedar Boat House

This is a boat house we built here in Bonner, MT, and shipped to Ely, MN. The timber structure is made of 8x12 solid reclaimed cedar. The timbers were attained from huge logs originally used in logging operations in Washington to bridge rivers -- acting as actual bridge structures.

The corners of the boat house are held together with dove-tail joinery. We built the trusses from reclaimed douglas fir obtained from deconstruction projects in Montana.

We also built all the doors for the structure. We constructed them from solid vertical grain reclaimed cedar also obtained from the Washington logging operation.

I can safely say that a solid cedar structure like this has rarely been attempted. It was a unique and great opportunity and certainly turns a lot of heads!

About Pfiffner Design Build

Building a custom home can be a daunting task. At Pfiffner Design Build we have the experience and expertise to communicate with professionals from across the trades to help simplify this process for you. Using old-world techniques and modern ingenuity, we find simple ways to build beautiful things, uniting functional demands, complex designs, and our client's vision. Like our clients, we believe in quality and individuality. Our work reflects our passion, unique skill set, and commitment to excellence. Every client and every batch of timbers says something a little different. We listen to our client, the wood, and the landscape to construct exceptional custom doors and timber frame homes.

Custom Doors: Datsopoulos MacDonald & Lind PC

These doors that we recently finished for Datsopoulos MacDonald & Lind PC in Missoula are solid walnut. They feature custom-cast bronze kick plates, push plates, handles and lock set from Rocky Mountain Hardware in Hailey, Idaho. The designer, Melina Datsopoulos, requested them.

They are French doors that swing both ways, finished with natural oil and wax. The glass is etched and beveled in order to create privacy.  

It's really unique to find stable thick walnut; it's almost never done -- everything is usually veneered instead. Walnut can warp. We found the wood at Intermountain Lumber --- dug through about 100 pieces to find 8 long ones for stiles and then, after we purchased it, it sat in a pile for weeks to make sure that it wouldn't warp.

The 5-piece window unit above the entrance doors was built to match. The window unit, doors and trim were all made out of the same material.

About Pfiffner Design Build

Building a custom home can be a daunting task. At Pfiffner Design Build we have the experience and expertise to communicate with professionals from across the trades to help simplify this process for you. Using old-world techniques and modern ingenuity, we find simple ways to build beautiful things, uniting functional demands, complex designs, and our client's vision. Like our clients, we believe in quality and individuality. Our work reflects our passion, unique skill set, and commitment to excellence. Every client and every batch of timbers says something a little different. We listen to our client, the wood, and the landscape to construct exceptional custom doors and timber frame homes.

Custom Doors: Break Espresso, Misssoula, MT

 

 The story behind the Break Espresso doors is pretty straightforward.

We met Rick (owner of the Break) through a designer in Missoula. We found the reclaimed vertical grain douglas fir at Home Resources. I pitched the idea of using the wood because of it stability and distinctive iron oxide stains from its previous life before being reclaimed. The wood was part of the roof structure in a warehouse building in Eastern Washington. (Gary Delp of Heritage Timber had procured the wood.) It was burly wood to work with -- it's really dense reclaimed old growth -- probably was cut down 100 years ago. The rings are very tight, when you pick it up it feels almost like a piece of iron, it's dense.

In downtown Missoula, we also created the doors at Sapore and are currently work on custom doors for Dotsopoulos, MacDonald & Lind, P.C. 

About Pfiffner Design Build

Building a custom home can be a daunting task. At Pfiffner Design Build we have the experience and expertise to communicate with professionals from across the trades to help simplify this process for you. Using old-world techniques and modern ingenuity, we find simple ways to build beautiful things, uniting functional demands, complex designs, and our client's vision. Like our clients, we believe in quality and individuality. Our work reflects our passion, unique skill set, and commitment to excellence. Every client and every batch of timbers says something a little different. We listen to our client, the wood, and the landscape to construct exceptional custom doors and timber frame homes.

Custom Doors: The Basics

Adam and I started building custom doors to accommodate the homes we build. It is nearly impossible to find doors of this quality and we can match them to each individual home.

We build solid wood doors with extremely high quality vertical grain materials. The doors have traditional mortise and tenon joinery. Each piece of wood is placed strategically to match grains and color.

We build all types of doors, ranging from very rustic to modern and refined. This all depends on the home or the request of the customer.

To create the Sapore doors downtown Missoula, the first step was finding the wood. The wood was located in Belgrade at a reclaimed wood outlet. It was sent there from the Daily Pickle factory in Wisconsin. Originally from the redwood forests somewhere on the West Coast, most likely California or Oregon, the wood was used in the pickle barrels for the same reason we use it in doors: it has extremely vertical grain, making the doors stable and straight, and ensuring long life and stability.

We design the doors to accommodate the customer, designer or architect. We often have a lot to do with the design. Everything from the wood we chose down to the finish is thought through carefully.

About Pfiffner Design Build

Building a custom home can be a daunting task. At Pfiffner Design Build we have the experience and expertise to communicate with professionals from across the trades to help simplify this process for you. Using old-world techniques and modern ingenuity, we find simple ways to build beautiful things, uniting functional demands, complex designs, and our client's vision. Like our clients, we believe in quality and individuality. Our work reflects our passion, unique skill set, and commitment to excellence. Every client and every batch of timbers says something a little different. We listen to our client, the wood, and the landscape to construct exceptional custom doors and timber frame homes.

Origins

My brother, Adam, and I own Pfiffner Design Build. We have been in business for 13 years in Missoula, Montana. Adam and I both started into the building trades when we were teenagers. It wasn’t until we came out to Montana from Wisconsin and started working for some timber framing companies that we discovered the techniques that would become our passion. After spending years mastering all aspects of building with logs and timbers, in all varieties of settings, we set up shop here for a couple of reasons: it’s a great place to do timber frame building--many people are familiar with and value the techniques, and there’s a strong market for custom homes. And, we can’t lie, Montana is a great place to recreate!

On our blog, we’re going to delve into some of the techniques that we use in our trade. To start off, let’s look at the basics of what it means when we say “timber framing.”

Timber frame homes are built with real wood joinery as the main frame of the home. With wood joinery—mortise and tenon joinery for example--the joints are created with the “load” or weight that they will have to bear firmly in mind. There’s a male and female part with a peg driven through it to secure the joint. So, there are no metal fasteners or other types of fasteners of any kind--just the wood fitting together and secured with the peg.

This is the way it's been done for hundreds of years. These types of homes are known to be the longest lasting wooden structures in the world, even when faced with the forces of nature.

Don’t confuse this type of structure with a stacked log home; it’s very different. With a timber frame home, you have more options in the way that you insulate it. For example, you can use straw bale, structural insulation panels (SIPS), or rastra (a slurry of concrete and Styrofoam). The wood frame is visible on the inside of the house--it’s set to the inside, which allows a lot of options for insulating on the outside, and it can be a very beautiful aesthetic effect to see the timber exposed on the inside of the home.

As I said, timber framing is an old technique. It’s how people built homes for years simply using hand tools. They figured out if you made a joint and put a peg in it, it would hold. Although the basic techniques of it seem simple, there’s a lot more calculation involved than meets the eye. Even the simplest structures are based on geometry and trigonometry--you need these skills to calculate the pressure points and the thrusts and loads, and to determine, for example, how big the pegs need to be.

Every project that we take on presents different challenges. Every project is different; and in some ways it’s always like starting over. The math has to be redone; the techniques re-investigated. Sometimes that’s frustrating, but after the first week we get into the flow and it’s great. And, we are almost always heavily involved in the design process. We work with the home owners, architects, or designer, and often times, all of them. It is a team effort and that is an essential part of the initial process.

Timber frame building is like a found-object project. Almost all of our projects use reclaimed timber, so we have first to search for the materials. We source our materials locally as much as possible. In Missoula, we work with Heritage Timber (Gary and Becky Delp) quite a bit. We also work with Superior Hardwoods, Timeless Timbers, and others. We deal locally whenever we can, but we have to find the right materials in terms of aesthetics and engineering. We sometimes source materials from other parts of the region such as Belgrade, MT, and Kamiah, ID. It’s not unusual for us to spend eight hours at a time sorting through materials in a yard, hours from home.

From sourcing onwards, timber frame building is harder than working with new timber. Also, the material is more expensive, sometimes a lot more, than new timber. Then there’s the de-nailing and de-metaling process as well as a pressure washing process to get the dirt out, and then the math, milling, and joinery process begins. By the time we go through all of these steps, we are more than familiar with the structures we build. We pretty much live in them. It’s an amazing technique that results in stunning, one of a kind structures.

About Pfiffner Design Build

Building a custom home can be a daunting task. At Pfiffner Design Build we have the experience and expertise to communicate with professionals from across the trades to help simplify this process for you. Using old-world techniques and modern ingenuity, we find simple ways to build beautiful things, uniting functional demands, complex designs, and our client's vision. Like our clients, we believe in quality and individuality. Our work reflects our passion, unique skill set, and commitment to excellence. Every client and every batch of timbers says something a little different. We listen to our client, the wood, and the landscape to construct exceptional custom doors and timber frame homes.