AVON — Thirty-six thick, timber frame posts are stacked against a wall in the Maine Mountain Timber Frames workshop on Route 4.

Mortise and tenon joinery have been cut into the hemlock posts so they will interlock when the new barn frame is put together at the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center in Livermore.

A mortise is a hole that is cut in a piece of wood so that a tenon, a piece of shaped wood, will fit into it to form a connection.

Katherine Jones-Lippy, 34, and her husband, Jence Carlson, 31, of New Vineyard, who co-own the business, are involved in every aspect of the barn project. Carlson grew up in Franklin County and attended Mt. Blue High School and the University of Maine at Farmington. Jones-Lippy grew up in Vermont and Philadelphia. The couple met doing timber frame apprenticeships in North Carolina.

They started their business in 2007 in Farmington and moved it to Strong. They still have a shop in Strong and own the workshop in Avon.

They and their employees have been prefabricating parts of the barn at the workshop for about two months.

They will use wooden pegs they have made to lock the timber-framed post-and-beam structure together.

The exterior of the 39-foot, 8-inch by 86-foot, 8-inch barn will be a reproduction of the original barn built with the mansion in 1867, and not the one that was destroyed in an accidental fire on April 28, 2008. The farmer’s cottage at Norlands, which has been rebuilt, was also damaged in the fire and the mansion was damaged. That also has been restored.

The cost of building the barn and associated expenses is estimated at $500,000 and half of that was raised before July 2013. A campaign to raise the rest began last year and has brought in $39,370, according to Sheri Leahan, director of Norlands.

The rafters will be made out of spruce. Jones-Lippy and Carlson worked with foresters to find spruce trees large enough to be cut into rafter timbers. The trees were found near Aziscohos Lake in Lincoln Plantation in Oxford County.

All of the wood to be used on the timber frame is from Maine and is being sawed at Gallan Lumber on Brett Hill Road in South Paris, Jones-Lippy said.

On Thursday, Jon Santiago of Kingfield and Eric Meyer of Farmington used electric chain-mortisers to rough out the mortises in timbers to take out the bulk of the wood. They planned to use a chisel to square off the cavity.

In another area of the workshop, octagon-shaped wooden pegs that have been sharpened fill buckets.

The pegs are made of kiln-dried ash, Jones-Lippy said.

“As the green timber dries around the round peg, they will lock together,” she said.

They have made hundreds of the 700 pegs needed.

Norlands is selling hand-hewn peg sponsorships for $25 each in a limited time offer. People can write their name or a special message on the peg to honor a loved one or friend, which forever will be in the barn, Leahan said. The pegs can be ordered by calling 897-4366, by email at norlands@norlands.org or securely online at Norlands.org. People can also visit the gift shop at the center but are asked to call ahead for hours.

Once the posts and beams for the barn are done, they’ll be hauled on flatbed trailers hopefully by the end of May or beginning of June to Norlands, Jones-Lippy said.

She and Carlson and a crew of employees will put up the frame and install pine boards on the roof and sides of the barn, Carlson said.

Norlands and the couple are holding a timber frame workshop from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 17, at the Maine Mountain Timber Frames shop in Avon. The cost is $50 and includes materials, snack and instruction. Both the peg sponsorships and workshop will benefit the barn project.

“We are really excited and honored to be part of this project, especially with Norlands being relatively close our community,” Jones-Lippy said.

dperry@sunjournal.com