Projects · Flathead Valley, MT · February 2025

The 12plex

A 12-unit multi-family building of about 19,000 square feet — the largest project we'd taken on at the time, and the one that proved we could run work at that scale.

Three stories of finished apartments in early sun, board-and-batten siding and an open stair tower running up the middle, with a boom lift standing on the graded dirt below.

~19,000sq ft: Size
12: Units
~5weeks: Framed in

About 19,000 square feet, framed in about five weeks over the winter of 2025. This was a 12-plex, and one of the first genuinely large projects we ran. Every company has a job that moves it into a different bracket — this was ours.

We built it with prefabricated wall panels from WBC, which is a big part of why it moved as fast as it did. Commercial multi-family work at this size is a different animal from a custom house — more repetition, less forgiveness on the schedule, and a crew that has to stay organized across a much bigger footprint. With panels showing up prefabricated, the framing crew’s job turns into setting and connecting rather than building from sticks, and the schedule compresses accordingly.

Commercial builds tend to move fast once they get going — blink and it’s framed. Coming out the far side of a job this size, on that timeline, is what made the larger work that followed possible.

More photos

Three stories sheathed and the window openings cut, snow still lying on the ground, with two of the crew walking the base of the wall and a ladder pitched up to the second floor.

Looking down over a whole floor of stud walls standing in their unit layout, every stud numbered in red crayon, one of the crew working at the far right and snow-covered mountains across the valley behind.

Looking up the open stair tower from the dirt below, floor beams and rafter tails stacked three levels above, a lift basket raised to the top floor and housewrap taped across the ground story.

The gable end wrapped to the ridge, a mobile crane boom reaching over the roof with an empty spreader bar on the hook, and a boom lift parked at the base on raw graded dirt.

Two tall sheathed walls flanking the open stairwell, a worker in high-visibility orange standing on the top-floor framing between them, with a lift basket swung in at the left.

Rafters set across half the roof with three of the crew working along the ridge, the rest of the walls still open to the sky, and a flatbed of banded lumber waiting in the mud below.

A single roof truss hanging from the crane line high above the building, silhouetted against a bright sky, with two of the crew waiting up on the roof to take it.

A roof truss swung in low over the top plate on its rigging, with a worker in orange reaching up from the roof edge to guide it down.

The crane boom reaching across to the roof with its rigging empty, a telehandler parked by the wall, and churned mud and standing water across the whole yard with snow-capped peaks on the far horizon.

A worker in orange leaning out over the roof edge with a lift basket raised alongside him, rafter tails running away down the slope and housewrap taped across the story below.

The long elevation in early light, sheathing above and housewrap below with an open breezeway straight through the middle, a mobile crane set up on its outriggers in the mud and banded lumber packs stacked alongside.

Half the elevation finished in tan board-and-batten siding and the other half still in housewrap with the balconies framed open, a boom lift standing by and siding stacked on sawhorses below.

The corner almost fully sided with the windows in, one gable still showing housewrap at the peak, and a mitre saw set up on sawhorses in the dirt with cut siding stacked beside it.

A worker in a green hard hat crouched on the top plate three stories up with the crane line coming down beside him, floor joists and rafters open to the sky and housewrap taped across the ground floor.