Embarking on this project is slightly daunting, having never done anything like this myself before. Many questions come to mind. For example: where do you buy green oak? And although I’m fairly confident I could cut the necessary joints, how was I going to cut all those curved braces? How would I fashion the two king posts for the trusses? And so on.
With this is mind, I contacted Andrew Holloway, the owner of The Green Oak Carpentry Company (GOCC) to see if they could help with the supply of the green oak. I did this with some trepidation because when we ordered the frame for our green oak extension from GOCC back in 2018, it was made very clear to us that GOCC “did not do garages”.
Anyway, Andrew couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the self-build idea. He agreed to supply the timber, cut the braces from curved stock…
…and cut the king post blanks.
All of a sudden this project was “on”.
Andrew’s name cropped up again when I was looking at what joints to use in the different parts of the building. He has authored or jointly authored at least two publications on the subject: Green Oak in Construction (published by Scottish Forestry) and Timber Joints: Traditional and Contemporary which is available to view page by page here.
I wish to thank GOCC for their enthusiastic support and making an idea seem possible.