We Live in a Barn

Our DIY Timber Frame Barn Home

When friends, family, and total strangers enter our timber frame home for the first time, eyes widen and jaws drop. It isn’t long before my husband, Scott, is excitedly sharing stories about how it all came to be.

As we wander around the house, we hear story after story. Yes, after seven years of building both the timber frame house and post and beam barn, we have our share of stories…and photos…and videos.

The stories begin with a timber frame magazine given to him by his sister. He was enamored. He attended a timber frame conference where he learned that we couldn’t afford a timber frame home, and that we weren’t capable of building it ourselves. Until he met Paxx Burk. Paxx made it seem possible…and he answered Scott’s one hundred and one questions.

And then one day in February 2015, a neighbor (we were living in South Carolina) was having their tall, beautiful, yellow pine trees cut down. He was outside in a heartbeat. He peppered the tree-cutting company with questions. “What are you going to do with the trees? Can I have them?”

And this is how the story begins.

The purpose of this website is to help others who want to build their own timber frame house or post and beam barn. We learned the hard way. There were many questions we had that we didn’t have answers for. There were mistakes we made along the way, and, thankfully, there were things we got right!

We are grateful to God for his favor along the way…for protecting us, for providing what we needed at the right time, and for putting people in our lives to help and give advice.

We hope this website will encourage others who want to do the same. And we hope you will also enjoy the stories and the photos. While it was a long process and a ton of hard work for our family, we look back and smile. We are grateful!

Now that our mission is complete, the new labor of love is documenting our story here on this website. Please check back ~ we have some great photos and videos that we can’t wait to share!

~ Benita Koeman