Add space and style with a TIMBER FRAMED EXTENSION

With timeless style and traditional craftsmanship, a timber framed extension is the ideal way to add space and style to your home... just like this customer, who had a very important deadline to meet!

Words & Images: Rob Davis.

Oh, that’s better! It’s quite chilly when we get out of the car but nice and warm when we enter the brand new garden room extension we’ve come to view, and the homeowner has even lit the log burner for us.

We’re here to find out what happens when a customer chooses Top Barn Timber Frames to create a new garden room extension for their property.

The company provides traditional timber framed extensions, garden rooms, home offices, porches, car ports and outdoor living spaces, all in chunky rustic oak. This one was completed just in the nick of time for the client who had a particular deadline the family wanted to work to.

“It was a really tight deadline!” says our homeowner. “Our son was due to get married at the end of November so we had a choice of a strict deadline prior to the wedding, or a strict deadline prior to Christmas or the option of waiting until the new year!”

With a sense of derring do and some wellplaced confidence in the Top Barn Timber Frames team, which is headed up by Oliver and Charlotte Penn, the customer opted to start work if the team could complete it before their son walked down the aisle on 26th November.

On the morning of the wedding there was the usual nervousness and pacing about, but certainly no worries about the garden room which had been completed a day or two before. It was the very room in which buttonholes were pinned to the groom and three groomsmen, and a month later, the same room was packed with Christmas gifts, which were opened in the room on 25th December too.

The couple’s family also raised a glass to one another on New Year’s Eve by the wood burner, and at the time of writing, they’re looking forward to throwing another log on the fire, snuggling under a blanket and watching the snow fall outside. Clare will also invite the book club into the room for the evening when it’s her turn to host its eight members as they debate literature... and of course, enjoy a glass of wine too!

“The house dates back to 1771 and it’s located in a conservation area, so obtaining planning permission wasn’t straight forward but it wasn’t too bad. It’s a south-facing room, so it enjoys plenty of natural light. It’s safe to say that it has been well-used already, and we’re thrilled with the space. Already a few neighbours have admired it and it wouldn’t surprise me if a few of them were considering something similar!” >>

>> Quite in addition to adding beautiful and usable space to your home, timber framed structures blend beautifully with your home, and the benefits don’t end there.

The structures are suitable for both internal spaces – living kitchens, studies, garden rooms – or external structures like car porches. Each building is completely bespoke and each one is fabricated beforehand too, meaning much of the work takes place off-site.

“Our bespoke structures are pre-fabricated in our own workshops, which means we’re free of disruption from bad weather and can do trial build runs, ensuring when we get on site everything will fit perfectly together. We cut traditional mortice and tenon joints, and when we assemble the structure on site, everything is pegged together with timber pegs which are, again, made in house.”

Direct glazing also means that whilst the buildings retain a traditional look and character, blending beautifully with older properties, they remain comfortable all year round; cosy in winter and cool in the summer. With sustainable materials like oak and hempcrete – lime mortar and dense hemp fibre – Top Barn Timber Frames’ buildings are energy efficient and sustainable, as well as being beautiful. Attractive, practical, sustainable and affordable... we think that Top Barn’s timber framed buildings are the future for many people looking to enhance their home, but a future that’s very much rooted in tradition, too. n

Find Out More: Top www.topbarntimberframes.co.uk for a free, no obligation, pressure selling-free discussion about your project.