Recently our fine woodworking division NEWwoodworks was involved in the renovation of a timber frame home that New Energy Works raised 20+ years ago in New York State. The project reunited our team with Brad Hall of Element Design Build, our former long-time construction manager, whose team was heading up the homes redesign and renovation.

We caught up with Rob D’Alessandro who manages our woodworking division to talk about the unique modern look the woodworking took on during the remodel of the home.

Q: How was this renovation project unique for the NEWwoodworks team?

A: This is a fairly unique project in terms of the way the design team on the renovation included some very specific elements that the homeowner had used in the past on other properties they own, incorporating that style into home. The result is a very modern look that our NEWwoodworks team had a lot of fun with.

When Julie built her ranch style home in Oregon back in 1989, she wanted a classic timber frame, but was unable to find anyone in the area building timber homes at the time. With a background in the construction industry and woodworking, she was her own general contractor on the home and got as close as she could to the timber frame aesthetic by including exposed beams and wood pillars.

“We are retired now, but what we did for a profession was excavation and heavy equipment rental, site work, a lot of high-end homes, municipality, public excavation work, like high schools, streets,” Julie told us. “Funny enough, we helped develop the neighborhood we live in about 35 years ago. We built our family home here, and at that time I wanted to do a timber frame structure, but no one in the area was doing them. What we have in the main house is open beam and wood pillars, which is as close as I could get to timber framing in 1989.”

More recently when Julie began considering retirement, she reached out to New Energy Works to design and build a timber frame addition to her much-loved family home. The reverent timber space that now houses her at home woodshop is designed to be a flexible space that can adapt to her fine woodworking needs today but could also be converted to functional living space in the decades to come.

Bryan Bleier from our High-Performance Made Easier ™ team sat down with our friends at Upstate House Magazine for their annual Passive House Guide issue to talk about why a homeowner should consider an enclosure system as an accessible way to craft a new high preforming home.

Learn more:

Passive House Guide 2023 by Chronogram

High Performance Building Enclosures | New Energy Works

High-Performance Home Building - Q&A | New Energy Works

Passive House Enclosure: Partnering for the Future | New Energy Works