Projects · Whitefish Hills, MT

Quinlan Residence

Framing of a roughly 6,300 square foot home including garage (about 5,200 square feet of main living space), the company's first project in the Whitefish Hills area.

The house dried in under printed housewrap, tall black window walls filling the gable end and timber posts carrying the porch roof, with a lift parked on the bare ground in front.

~6,300sq ft: Size
~5,200sq ft: Main living
Apr–Aug2024: Timeline

The Quinlan house came in around 6,300 square feet counting the garage, with main living space at about 5,200 square feet. It was our first project out in Whitefish Hills, and it turned into one of the more enjoyable builds we’ve had — a good mix of standard framing and some heavier steel work tied into the interior structure.

Out back there’s a large hot tub built into the site. Inside, the steel structure is a visible feature rather than something hidden behind finish work, which made the framing coordination more involved than a typical house this size.

Work ran from spring through late summer of 2024, based on the site photos, covering the full framing sequence from early structure through closer-to-finished stages.

Challenges

First build for Glacier Basin Builders in the Whitefish Hills area, incorporating substantial steel structure into the interior framing.

More photos

A line of red steel columns standing clear of the foundation with a beam already set between two of them, stud walls rising on the concrete below and a telehandler working between the two.

A steel portal frame standing on the foundation with one of the crew up a step ladder at the column, another beam lying ready on the gravel and sill plates bolted down along the concrete.

Looking across a floor of stud walls laid out in rooms with two red steel columns rising through them, a concrete shaft at the right and plans lying open on the deck.

First light over the site, framed walls standing on the foundation with steel columns beyond them, a coil of blue service pipe on the gravel and the excavated trench still open alongside.

The first floor decked out flat with open floor trusses showing along its edge and a line of red steel columns standing up through it, the pines close in on every side.

The decked floor from the corner with the stepped foundation below it, steel columns standing in a row along the far edge and a mountain showing through a gap in the pines.

The whole floor platform decked and open, a scatter of red steel columns standing waiting on it, with a generator running by the trailer and the drive cut into the dirt alongside.

Tools laid out across the fresh plywood deck with the floor trusses open beneath it, steel columns standing beyond and one of the crew working from a ladder at the far corner.

A stair framed up inside with its stringers cut and the first treads in place, plywood lining the walls around it and a hose run across the deck.

Looking down into the stairwell from the floor above, two flights of cut stringers with their treads and risers going on, and a corner of black-framed glazing filling the wall at the head of them.

The house dried in under printed housewrap with its black window units set, a timber gable truss standing out over the left end and a covered porch on timber posts at the right.

The entry elevation from the drive, a tall gable of glazing beneath an exposed timber gable frame, roof underlayment laid on and every window unit in.

Looking along the top of the walls where heavy timber beams cross the stud framing, a line of red steel rafters running away to the right above scaffold, with the valley and far mountains beyond.

Looking straight up at the steel gable frame with timber infill framed between its members, two of the crew up on the steel and a telehandler lowering a post in from above.

A bundle of heavy pre-cut timber posts hanging in the telehandler's straps on the way to the deck, with two of the crew waiting beyond among the beams already set.

A worker up a step ladder guiding a heavy timber beam into its notched post, the bay braced with diagonals and the wrapped wall of the finished section standing alongside.

A long timber beam coming down on the telehandler's strap onto its posts, one of the crew steadying it from a ladder, another sitting up on the sheathed wall watching it land and a third checking plumb below.

Two of the crew sat astride a heavy timber beam just landed on its posts, the telehandler's forks still overhead and a third watching from the deck below.

A row of heavy timber rafters cantilevering out over the wall on their posts and beams, bolted at every joint, with one of the crew working along the top at the far end.

Two of the crew standing on the top beam in full sun fixing a rafter, the cut timbers rising past them and the wrapped wall running away below.

The timber roof frame complete over the gable, rafters and purlins fanning out to deep overhangs on both sides, standing above the wrapped walls under a mackerel sky.

Wall panels standing on the fresh deck with their housewrap already on, one more lying flat on the gravel waiting to be lifted, and two of the crew working between them under a telehandler's forks.

A view out from the cab of the telehandler, its yellow bonnet filling the foreground, with wrapped wall panels standing on the deck and a row of steel columns behind them.

A steel roof frame standing on the deck with lifting slings still hanging from its apex, braces radiating from a round steel node at the peak, and a welder in a hood working at the column base.

Four of the crew up ladders around a steel gable frame, working at the bolted knee braces where the rafters meet the columns, with the wrapped stud walls standing alongside.

The steel roof frame complete and standing on the deck, rafters sloping down from a round node at the ridge and braces fanning out beneath, with a crane hook still hanging above and two of the crew up ladders at the column tops.