Despite the "laymen" warnings your article actually contains a significant ammount of sophisticated discussion and terms. For example, almost immediately you use undefined terms like "wall plate" which potentially might not mean much to Joe Public. A drawing or better still a set of comparative drawings with glossary descriptions would have helped your article (or were these published earlier ?).
The publication of timber frame craft articles in local newspapers is a difficult area and a name that springs to mind that might help provide you with some inspiration and example is the "Seeing Eye" series published in the Surrey Advertiser England from the late 60's through till the early 90's by artist and timber frame expert John Baker. John published over 800 articles and thus the scope for others to publish in a simliar fashion is actually quite good. Many people were known to clip and keep John's articles and these now form an unrivalled corpus of knowledge. Anyone who would like to view a typical *.pdf example of John's beautifully illustrated articles can send me an email request.
It is really important to publish findings and I commend your efforts and look forward to reading the follow up article. I shall now re study your article.
