When you just peg a tenon without resting the remainder of the beam on a shoulder or housing, you may as well have a beam only as big as the tenon because the rest of the beam is for show, not structure!

Unfortunately, I had the timbers cut and milled because of the timing of the logging I was doing on my property. I had already made a deal with David Place, of Specialty Forestry and Logging of Monson, Massachusetts and I didn't want to renegotiate or delay. I ended up with junk barn plans and a bunch of timbers that I wasn't sure were correct. Now, I would have to make them work.