Great Design:

Our [Not-So-Secret] Superpower

Our Design DNA:

Cornerstone has been creating beautiful timber frames for over 30 years and the beauty is not accidental. Our founding designer, Wayne Peters, was a life-long learner with a big appetite for reading and travel. Architecture, bookstores, and especially tours of timber frame buildings were the unspoken agenda for many a “family vacation”. Wayne’s love of visual balance, weight and harmonious proportion were always at work in his drawings. The eraser dust that accumulated under his drafting table was evidence of his untiring search for beauty in form and function. His design DNA remains a strong presence at Cornerstone.

Wayne at work, December 2004

Your Design Path:

Have you found the perfect spot? Are you beginning to imagine the spaces you want in your new cottage or home?

Here’s a look at our clients’ typical design path:

First Meetings

You are welcome to meet us at the Cornerstone office and if interest and time allow, we can also offer a tour of our workshop. If your site has unusual features or presents challenges for where to locate your home, we’re also able to arrange site visits. Depending on distance to site, a travel charge may apply.

The initial meeting is a time for mutual discovery. Through questions and sharing of ideas, images and experience a Cornerstone designer will listen and help you explore the shape and placement of key elements in your design. Bring any inspiration images you have, information about your site and a sense of the budget you’d like to stay within. When a good sense of your design direction is achieved it’s time to work on plans and models!

Concepts & Preliminary Plans

This step is comprised of two complimentary activities: Preliminary construction drawings and creation of a timber frame model. We will be happy to recommend a home designer who can prepare your floor plan and elevation concepts. As your home designer draws the plan, your Cornerstone designer imagines how timber can capture the ideas and inspiration from your initial meeting. In a few days you’ll receive a 3D timber model to review, so you can better imagine how the plan and timber frame relate to each other.

A typical concept model will come with exterior views.

As well as overviews and a variety of interior views

Shop Drawings

Once your plan and the timber model are fully aligned with your vision, and you’re ready to proceed with your project, it’s time for Cornerstone to prepare a detailed drawing set for you and your builder to review. A “Shop Drawing” set will have from 8-30 pages with the exact details of every dimension and piece within your timber frame. We recommend that you and your builder take time to look at each page and detail to ensure that it meets your expectations.

Engineering

Your timber frame’s shop drawing set will also go to a structural engineer for review. In most locations your timber shop drawings are required to bear the stamp of an engineer licensed to practice in your state or province. Even in the case where your building location may not require a review, we highly recommend it. An engineer’s risk reduction perspective is part of a well-rounded quality construction program. Cornerstone has solid working relationships with structural engineers who are certified to review and stamp in virtually all the locations where you may want to build.

Renderings & Visualizations

If you would like to better understand how your project will look when it’s complete, a render offers a realistic picture of your exterior and interior. This is an optional, fee-based service. Talk with one of our designers for details on availability and cost.

If you are interested in using timber this is the right time to connect with Cornerstone.

Get in touch to discover how timber can be incorporated into your next project!