Some of the old class rules

[Ellsworth]

Do not take the class if you have already decided which state you want to live in.
Do not take the class if you have already purchased land.
Do not take the class if you have already cut down your trees.
Do not take the class if you have already peeled your logs.
Do not take the class if you have already paid for 'log home' plans.
Do not take the class if you have already constructed a foundation.
Do not take the class if you have already started building a log home.

Deviating from those rules will cost you money.
Deviating from those rules will increase your future log home maintenance.
Deviating from those rules will mean you have likely already made irreversible mistakes.

It's as true today as it was back in the 1960s.

We maintained that in our marketing message, with various degrees of emphasis, continually until around 2018.

We might go back to that stark/blunt of a message.

[Shark]

You could view that as, we are weeding out 90% of the people that are going to be a pain in the butt. ;)

jandjloghome.blogspot.com

[mudflap]

that one about not buying land.....

I remember that one when I signed up for the class in November. I had to wait until February to take the class. About a week or so before the class, we found the perfect piece of land - nice and flat, lots of big trees, good price, but I told my wife, "we should wait until I take the class -what if they tell me something I hadn't thought of?" She wasn't too keen on the piece of land anyway, so she agreed to wait.

When I came back from the class, the land was no longer for sale. I looked around for another piece, but couldn't find anything. So we said a little prayer one night and asked God to let us know what to do. The very next day - I kid you not - I got an email from the agent - "still interested in that piece of land?" And so we went ahead and bought it.

When we met the 80 yr old neighbor, I knew why our land was perfect for us - the old man taught me to weld, showed me how to survey the land, helped me with my tractor, and turned out to be our biggest fan while we were building. He asked if he could keep our model, and he showed it to everyone who came by. I used to swing by and sit under their veranda and just shoot the breeze and listen to his amazing stories. He used to work with Verner Von Braun (the rocket guy), and was chief of police, and wore a bunch of other hats. Turned a combine into a road grader. I have 3 or 4 of his implements for his tractor - all totally homemade. It was a gift from the family after he died.

[loghousenut]

About buying land. Not many years after taking the class from Skip, I had a lady friend who lived here in sunny southern Oregon. She lived about 7 miles up the nastiest shared maintenance road imaginable.

But just as you turned off the pavement and just before her road got ugly, there was a 40 acre parcel that must have been special ordered for official LHBA (formerly LHBANA) use only. It was covered with beautiful, identical twin Douglas Fir trees that were 12' apart and 18" at breast height.

They had obviously grown close together and they were tall and straight with few limbs and less taper. The place was perfect and I knew it would be mine some day.

Suddenly, it was a field of stumps. Some rascal had bought it and logged it. I was crushed and it was a great lesson for me.

The rest of the story is the heartbreaking part. A year later, I was driving by and noticed a guy on the place. Turned out he was a neighbor taking a short cut to a neighbor. I stopped and we chatted and eventually the story came out.

A small logging company had bought it for a song. The logs all went to a small local mill a couple weeks later and then the fireworks happened. This whole area had been part of the Camp White training area (look it up Brian) during WWII. This spot was an artillery range and these trees all had shrapnel in them from those days and the logging company had damaged blades to pay for and logs to buy back.

They would have been perfect for house logs, had I asked the right people the right questions at the time.

Oh well... She would never have been the right long term gal for me and I'm certainly glad she doesn't drive by my place every day.


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