FOR PROS BY PROS · THE TAUNTON PRESS · 224 PAGES
The Very Efficient Carpenter: Basic Framing for Residential Construction
Frame faster, cleaner and with fewer wasted cuts — the way production framers actually do it.
Larry Haun spent five decades framing houses in the California production boom and then spent the rest of his life teaching what he'd learned. This is that knowledge in one book: floors, walls and roofs, laid out in the order you build them, with the habits that turn a competent carpenter into a genuinely efficient one.
Floors, walls and roofs in build order — the full residential frame from mudsill to ridge, explained by someone who did it thousands of times
Production-speed habits — layout, cutting and nailing methods designed to save motion on every single stud, not just on the tricky parts
Tools, setup and jobsite flow — how to organise material, tools and your own movement so a day's framing takes a day
Illustrated throughout — step-by-step photographs and drawings, so you can see the cut, the layout mark and the nail pattern rather than read about it
Written for apprentices, trade students, DIY builders and working carpenters who suspect there's a faster way — and are right.
The Very Efficient Carpenter: Basic Framing for Residential Construction
Same Wall. Twice the Time. Nobody Told You Why.
Two carpenters frame the same wall. One is done, plates snapped, walls stood and braced, before the other has finished laying out the plates. Same lumber. Same tools. Same drawings.
The difference isn't strength and it isn't talent. It's a few hundred small decisions — where the material gets stacked, which cut comes first, how many times the tape comes out, how many steps between the saw and the wall.
Most people learn framing by watching whoever was nearest. That means you inherit their habits, including the slow ones, and never find out which ones cost you an hour a day.
Speed on a jobsite isn't rushing. It's the absence of wasted motion — and that can be taught.
Fifty Years of Framing, Written Down Once.
Larry Haun framed houses through the California production boom, when the pace of the work forced every wasted step into the open. Over five decades he stripped the process down to what actually moves a house forward, and then he spent twenty years teaching it.
The Very Efficient Carpenter is that method on paper. It follows a house in the order it gets built — floors, then walls, then the roof — and at each stage shows the layout, the cuts, the nailing and the sequence a production framer uses, with photographs and drawings for every step.
It's part of Taunton's For Pros By Pros series, written by a tradesman for other tradespeople. No filler, no theory for its own sake, no assumption that you have a helper.
It won't swing the hammer for you. It will show you where the time goes.
Inside the book
What You'll Learn
01
Floor Framing
Mudsills, girders, joists and subfloor — setting up the platform square, level and fast enough that every wall above it goes up easier.
02
Wall Framing
Plate layout, studs, headers, corners and openings. How to lay out and build walls flat on the deck, then stand and brace them as a system.
03
Roof Framing
Ceiling joists, common rafters and the roof structure, with the layout and cutting methods that keep a roof crew moving.
04
Layout & Cutting Efficiency
Marking once, cutting in batches, and reading the plans so the material is where you need it before you need it.
05
Tools & Jobsite Workflow
Which tools earn their place on your belt, how to set up a cut station, and how to arrange a site so nobody walks further than they have to.
06
Safety & Good Habits
Working fast and working safe are the same discipline. The routines that protect your hands, your back and the people around you.
A Look Inside
Step-by-step photographs and drawings for every stage of the frame — the layout mark, the cut, the nail pattern — so you can see exactly what the text describes.
From the foundation up
A House, in Build Order
01
Reading the Plans
What a framer actually needs off a set of drawings, and how to turn it into a cut list and a plan for the day.
02
Setting Up the Site
Where the lumber goes, where the saw goes, and why those two decisions decide how tired you are by three o'clock.
03
The Floor Platform
A square, level deck is the cheapest accuracy you'll ever buy. Everything after it is measured from here.
04
Walls on the Deck
Layout, assembly and standing walls as one continuous rhythm instead of a series of separate jobs.
05
The Roof
Rafters and ceiling joists, laid out and cut in batches, so the roof goes on with the same efficiency as the walls.
06
Finishing the Frame
Sheathing, bracing and the details that leave a frame ready for the next trade — and don't bring you back to fix it.
Larry Haun. Carpenter, Teacher, Legend.
Larry Haun (1931–2011) started building on the Nebraska prairie at seventeen and didn't stop for sixty-three years. He spent most of that time as a union journeyman carpenter framing production houses in Southern California with his brothers, through the boom that built the modern suburb.
He was known on site for setting a nail in two swings. He was known everywhere else for writing it all down: more than twenty articles for Fine Homebuilding, several books for The Taunton Press, and a set of companion framing videos that a generation of carpenters learned from.
Later he taught carpentry at a community college for twenty years and spent his retirement building houses for Habitat for Humanity. This is the book he's remembered for.
More Than Another Framing Video.
Videos show you a framer. This shows you how a framer thinks.
More Than Another Framing Video.
Videos show you a framer. This shows you how a framer thinks.
A twelve-minute clip shows you one wall going up, once, on someone else's site. It skips the layout, the cut list and the fifty small choices that made it look easy.
A book sits on the tailgate with a pencil in it. You can go back to the rafter layout as many times as it takes, mark it up, and hand it to the apprentice when they ask the same question you did.
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The Very Efficient Carpenter
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Another Framing Video
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Follows a house in build order
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Written by a fifty-year production framer
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Layout and cutting, not just assembly
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Open on the tailgate, no signal needed
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Photographs and drawings of every step
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Still the reference on your next job
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Who it's for
Written for People Who Build Things
01
The DIY Home Builder
Framing a shed, an addition or the whole house yourself. This is the method that stops a weekend job becoming a month.
02
The Owner-Builder
Managing your own build and tired of not knowing whether the framing crew's approach is right. Now you'll know.
03
The Serious Woodworker
You know joinery; you want structure. Residential framing explained without assuming you've been on a site.
04
The Apprentice
Learning the trade from whoever's nearest. Read this and you'll arrive knowing why the good ones do it the way they do.
05
The Working Carpenter
Competent, employed, and quietly aware that the older framer beside you is faster. This is where that speed comes from.
06
The Trade Student
A course teaches you the code and the vocabulary. This teaches you the pace and the habits that get you hired.
Verified in-store customer reviews
What Builders Say
Questions Before You Buy
Everything worth knowing before this lands in your truck.
What does the book actually cover?
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Basic residential framing, in the order a house is built: floor framing, wall framing and roof framing, plus the tools, layout methods, cutting and nailing techniques and site setup that let a production framer work quickly and accurately. It is illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings.
What skill level is it written for?
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It assumes you can use basic hand and power tools but not that you've framed a house before. Apprentices and DIY builders use it to learn the method from scratch; working carpenters use it to tighten up habits they picked up on site.
Is it only useful for professionals?
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No. The title says For Pros By Pros, but the point of the book is that the professional way is also the simplest way. If you're building a shed, a garage or an addition yourself, you'll save more time from it than most pros will.
What format is it, and how many pages?
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This is the Taunton Press paperback edition of The Very Efficient Carpenter: Basic Framing for Residential Construction, 224 pages, published in the For Pros By Pros series. Check the format selector above for the editions currently available from us.
Does it cover current building codes?
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It teaches framing method and technique, not a specific code cycle. Fastener schedules, spans and connectors should always be checked against your local code and the plans you're building from. The way you lay out, cut and assemble the frame hasn't changed.
How long does shipping take?
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Orders are dispatched promptly and tracking is sent by email as soon as your copy ships. Delivery times vary by destination — see our shipping policy for details on your region.
What if it isn't what I expected?
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You're covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If the book isn't right for you, get in touch within 30 days of delivery and we'll sort it out.
Will this make me a faster framer on its own?
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No, and we won't pretend otherwise. It shows you exactly where the wasted motion is and how a fifty-year production framer eliminated it. Putting that into your hands takes practice. The book makes the practice count.
Build It Once. Build It Right. Build It Fast.
Every frame you put up is a set of habits made visible. The good ones are square, plumb and finished by the time the lunch truck leaves.
Those habits didn't come naturally to anyone. They were worked out over decades by people who framed for a living, and one of them wrote it all down.
Start with the book that's been on tailgates for thirty years.