Im new and need advice ...

[Tngal]

Me and my husband have started talking about building a log home - as we have 4 children .. And we are wanting a more farm type setting for our boys to romp on as well as our horses . I have looked at kits and just wasnt that impressed and i have been reading up and the BnP seems to be the way i want to go .. but not my hubby . Hes wanting a turn key type home :( . While im thinking it would be cheaper for us to build our own home the way "I" want it of course :) . If yuns could point me in any good directions , and posts, blogs, pictures, ect .. i would be very grateful as after seeing some of the homes on this site im thinking that this is something that we could do as a family and then have a finished product that we could live in and be happy . I also have questions about logs and all those goodies which im hoping yuns will be able to help me out with in the long run .. as we are still looking for that "perfect land" while we get our house ready to sell . Thank you in advance for any and all help !

[blane]

This experience has been awesome for my entire family. It has helped me to instill work ethics in my children (5) that a turn key home would never have done. We have the same aspirations for our children to have a more simple life and this has been the beginning for us. Feel free to check out our blog. You can look at my sons blog as well, he keeps his updated more than the official blog.

[loghousenut]

You'll have a hard time building your own log home with your own hands unless it is your husbands idea. I'd say the same thing if it was the wife who were not on board. If this is not the dream of both of you it'll be the biggest mess you'll ever get divorced over.

I don't know the magic word that will grab his attention and suddenly light the fire. I and my Wife have known that this is how we wanted to do it since we went to class together. We have loved every minute of the process and it has been a great experience for our Son who is about to turn 20. I wish I woulda done it earlier when he was younger... No I don't... I'm tickled to be doing it right now. When we are done we will own it free and clear and it'll be the coolest home in the neighborhood.

The neighbors and folks at work think I'm crazy. They come out and see the place or look at photos and they say "Wow that's cool but I'd never want to do it". They make jokes about how I'm too old. They rave about how long it's taken to get to this point. They wonder why we're not done yet. They offer to buy it from us if I'll only get off my dead butt and get 'er done. They don't understand, and I don't understand why they don't understand. Your husband doesn't understand, and I don't understand why he doesn't understand. I know that if the idea does'nt grab him by the throat and shake him, it won't work. I think it is some kind of a mental disorder that makes me/us feel this way. I'm glad that I am infected.

For some strange reason I don't feel like it has taken too long or too much labor to get our home to this point in the build. We are doing if fairly slowly and yet it seems like only yesterday that we started clearing land. I'm in no hurry to get it done and that bugs a lot of people (including my Wife) but it'll get done right on time and she's sticking like glue right beside me. It has taken a lot of sweat and a bunch of money to get to this point and yet it hasn't seemed like work and we have been able to afford it without really changing our lifestyle much.

It has made my Son into a man and helped to prepare him to tackle the world in his own way. He has done things that most of the kids at College just haven't had a chance to do. He has failed a time or two and made the kind of mistakes that build character. He has also piloted the machine that hoisted a 13,000 lb ridgepole to its permanent perch at the peak of our roof. He has learned a lot about trust and overcoming doubt and self-doubt. He has come up with some great ideas that solved a problem or two. He could build his own home at any time and I sincerely hope it happens at least once for him and his family.

Our Son didn't go to class (too young at the time) but has learned by doing. He knows why the LHBA method works and why the LHBA method makes a home that will last for generations. Since he was a small Boy he has seen and touched log homes and kit homes that have log rot and are a structural nightmare after standing only 10 or 20 years. He's seen log homes with settling issues that have sticking doors and cracked windows. He understands, as we build our home this way, why those problems are no concern to us or his Grandkids. This Home will be standing, and it will be strong and comfortable, long after the builders are dead and buried. Our Son has no experience with a 30 year mortgage and has never gone through a repossession or foreclosure.

Your marriage is a whole lot more important than any home is. If your Husband catches enough of the bug to get excited about it you should BOTH go to class. Once he is bitten you should hold on with both hands 'cause it's gonna be a wild ride. If he is like my friends at work and wanders away from the LHBA web site to go back to solitaire, then it won't work. Either way, it is probably a great time to purchase land.

Good luck to the both of you.



http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t55/loghousenut/Wow/Rafters9-2010068.jpg

[rocklock]

Tngal;
I'm new and need advice...
I agree with the housenut...
I built because my wife and I are in complete agreement even though she doesn't know beans about construction...

Buying a turn key log home is a bad idea. Especially if it means a mortgage. Good turnkey log homes are very expensive if they are done right...

LHBA is an educational organization. We are here to provide ideas, encouragement and some experiences. Building a log home is a journey. You and hour husband need to supply the motivation...

Visit the web site and do the due diligence... http://www.loghomebuilders.org/

You might also look at my photobucket site. I have a video the explains part of the process...

Good luck

[edkemper]

On the other hand;

Think about it this way. Most of us here will spend about 2 years actually building our homes. Give a little extra, call it 3 years. The way I look at it is we'll own our homes free and clear after about 36 months of labor.

Your husband will be slaving away at his job to pay for his turn-key home for another 324 payments. A shocking way to look at it but it's real. Just think of what he could do for his family if he had those 324 payments in his pocket. Remember the cost of college is rising faster than the cost of living.

Read everything on the site and share the most enticing stuff with him you find. It'd be hard to spend much time here without finding others "just like us." If he warms up to the idea, this may be for you. If he doesn't, you can still have a rich and wonderful life, as long as you hang on to your family.

At the very least, you'll learn about the value of Costco Muffins.

Welcome aboard.

[Tngal]

Thank you all so much for being so kind and well truthful ! We have built sheds for the horses and he had no problem with doing that with me ,However, Im thinking hes just worried because this will be something we invest a lot of time into and will one day live in it for the rest of our lives !! I have shown him this site and so far hes pretty amazed that just normal every day people =) have been able to make some of these amazing homes . So , I'm hoping this site and pictures and info will help push him in this direction of building ! I would like to ask if there's any blogs related to indoor plumbing / electric and heating and air as that is his main concern as he has been looking .. if i can get him sold on those .. Im pretty sure i can help him see the light that this would be the best way for us to build !!

[Blondie]

Hi,

We are all just normal people. We do not have, wait, very few of us have any background in these specialties. But what most folks have done is hire the electrician(etc) to instruct us and oversee the wk we do on our houses. I have helped my Dad pull wire in their house. I watched as he hooked it up.
Most of it was simple logic, for the rest I will need a licensed electrician to guide me or pay him to do it for me. Yes, I am a single woman and I will do it with help.

Blondie

[rreidnauer]

Utilities? There is very little one can't do with a little bit of time researching what they wish to understand. Electrical, in my opinion, is ridiculously simple, from service entrance to light bulb. Anyone can learn that. (though, if three and four-way switches are used, it tends to confuse people :))

Plumbing too, is quite basic. The trickiest part of that really, is assuring the plumbing is properly vented. I think this task can be handled by most with a little bit of reading.

HVAC might be the most difficult of the three. Here, quite a few things have to be sized correctly. (furnace BTUs, AC tonnage, trunk line dimensions with proper stepdowns, number and size of registers and ductwork for rooms) The good news is, you can get someone to do the design, and you could install it yourself.

Basically, utilities are no different a challenge than building the home itself. It's just a matter of gaining some knowledge so it doesn't appear as mysterious as it does to you now.

I do have a thread ongoing on the member's side of the forums detailing the construction of a full septic system installed by myself. I never done one before, and built it completely unassisted. It's not rocket science, I can assure you of that.

[blane]

I am getting close to plumbing and electrical on my build and I have 0 experience on those things. But I have friends who do, including my BI who said he would show me how to do it. So I am betting you guys have friends who have knowledge in those areas. Everyone I talk too about those things seem to echo what Rod says (ridiculously simple). The hardest part of the build will be the roof in my opinion. I will not have HVAC in my home but I will put in a wall mounted AC unit that should handle my needs. As for heat, I will have a propane monitor and wood. With 18" thick walls in moderately mild climates I think a well insulated log home will out preform a stick built home any day, so depending on what part of TN you are in I would think a simple system would do. The KISS method applies very well at LHBA.

[Timberwolf]

Thank you all so much for being so kind and well truthful ! We have built sheds for the horses and he had no problem with doing that with me ,However, Im thinking hes just worried because this will be something we invest a lot of time into and will one day live in it for the rest of our lives !! I have shown him this site and so far hes pretty amazed that just normal every day people =) have been able to make some of these amazing homes . So , I'm hoping this site and pictures and info will help push him in this direction of building ! I would like to ask if there's any blogs related to indoor plumbing / electric and heating and air as that is his main concern as he has been looking .. if i can get him sold on those .. Im pretty sure i can help him see the light that this would be the best way for us to build !!

While I may not be "normal" in the traditional sense, I can assure you it can be done. We broke ground 2 1/2 years ago, while my wife was pregnant at the time with our 3 child. I will be dried in in a week or 2. Not fast, to be assured, (but I also work full time, and spend time with my family as well) but you can do it, if you really want too. For those times where you are worried about being able to perform a certain task (electrical) rest assured, there are ways to get it done, and professionals who will do it for you, probably at a discount, just to add "the coolest house ever!" to their project wall, and I guarantee you, it will cost a whole bunch less than a "turn-key" house.

And if at any time you run into a wall, the members of this association will be there to lend a pile of knowledge and experience, and quite possibly, a hand.

Good luck on your decision(s).

Oh, and the Loghousenut is wise... very wise...

[rckclmbr428]

Tngal, welcome! I've got a build starting just across the NC border, the number one mistake people make is taking something simple and over complicating it. It's not rocket science!

[Bill LaCrosse]

Absolutely go look at a kit and then go visit a "REAL" log home! Pictures do not do it justice! I have shown family and friends photos and they watch on facebook...then to a tee every person who has come out says EXACTLY the same thing...holy @#$%...and I am talking young, old, religious...folks I have never heard swear! Go look at one if your husband does not "get the bug" then he might not ever.
Regards,
Bill

[happyquilter]

Tngal, I'm a bit like you. I immediately "got it," but my more, shall we say cautious, husband was skeptical. In our search for a vacation home we had seen some beautiful hand built forest service cabins so he knew they could be amazing, but he doubted WE could do it. I asked for the class as my combined Christmas/birthday present. He couldn't believe I was that serious. Meantime I kept feeding him little tidbits from this site as I began to realize that this really is possible and could be our answer to affording that unaffordable vacation home in the mountains. My husband is recently retired and our main home is paid off. We do NOT want to take on a mortgage or any debt, so we had just about given up. Well, when it came time for me to make my reservation for the January class, I just said, "You know, you should really come to that class with me. Everyone on the forums says so!" (tee hee) And he surprised the heck out of me by agreeing! (I wasted no time registering us both and booking our flights, lol!) We are now headed to Vegas in 3 weeks to take the class and become part of the "family." Guess what my dear hubby said just this morning? He said, "We should build two cabins and sell one to pay for the other." I cannot wait to take the class and start looking for land. If your husband is cautious like mine was, be sure to let him know that most people build a scale model first, and many people practice by building a smaller building first, like a shed, garage, or guest house. You can also practice your skills by volunteering your labor on other people's homes while you learn more and start collecting the needed tools over time. Knowing all that really helps. Good luck! I hope you do go down this path, and I agree with the others that it should be a joint passion to succeed.

[mickeywingnut]

The best things that could have ever happened to our family growing up was the neighbors not liking the dirt bikes, dogs, or back lawn turned into a pony pasture... These things eventually caused the butterfly to come out of the cocoon and my folks bought 40 acres from a local logging company. I hate to think how I might have turned out had this not happened for me as a young teenager. At 14 my mom would drop me off there alone in the mornings with my chainsaw, a lunch and eventually an old backhoe. Not too long thereafter we had a horse pasture, driveway and house sight cleared. By the time I could legally drive I was often making over $1,000 a week with my own firewood business from that property. Later, on my first day of college, I approached a local contractor working on campus who I was told wasn't hiring. He said he didn't need any more grunt workers but jokingly asked if I could dig a level ditch with his backhoe trying to politely get rid of me. ...Except it didn't work and I was hired on the spot. By 18 I already had hundreds of hours of backhoe experience and I worked my way through college with his construction company. Again, thanks to my folks for getting land in the country.

I'm a dentist now and make a living pulling rotten teeth out of meth heads. And every single one I meet I see a bit of myself in, and wonder what might have happened to me had I not been kept so busy through those crucial years by that move to the country.

So I'm really not sure why I wrote all this. I haven't even mentioned a log home once in this rambling. But somehow your situation sounded exactly like my family's almost two decades ago and I thought you should know that your on the right track. Bite off way more then you can chew and your family won't go hungry.

[BoFuller]

Hi,

We are all just normal people.

Blondie

I'm not so sure about that. I'm a member too! :cool:
And there's LHN, and Ed, and ....... ;)

[Strongbow]

Tngal,
Your husband being in with you on this is the number one most important part of the entire prospect. No, I've never built before, but I do have a girlfriend and just from smaller disagreements she and I have had, I know that if one of us wants to do something but the other isn't interested, then it won't work.
Sell it to your husband in a way that he likes!
If he doesn't like debt, sell it to him by saying these two words: without mortgage. Weigh these options: Pay $15,000 for a $15,000 house that you built yourself and never worry about it again or pay $400,000 for a $180,000 house, that you didn't build, pay on it for thirty years of your life (keeping in mind that American males have an average life expectancy of 75 years), and fix it when something major league important breaks every two to six months. That is the difference between log home builds and turnkeys. I'm petrified scared of debt. It affects me, not just psychologically, but physiologically. Just talking about it causes my blood pressure and heart rate to increase. So, no mortgage for me please. I'd rather live in this crappy 500 square foot one bedroom apartment for the rest of my life than take on a mortgage, but I must own a home, so log it is for me.
If your husband likes to work with his hands, that's another great way to sell it to him.
I've always been more of a country kind of guy myself, but my girlfriend's is a little more of a city person. This past summer, she and I took a vacation to Montreal, Canada, where we visited her cousin and his girlfriend. The cousin's girlfriend owns a log home that she and her family built themselves. My girlfriend fell in love with it and started researching log homes as soon as we got back to Detroit. That's how she found LHBA. She read everything there was to read about it and insisted that I go to the November class. I originally didn't want to, but here's how she sold me on it:
No mortgage
About 1/10 the price of a traditional home (I would rather call them disposable homes)
They don't break as often
If the class is a wash, then at least the wash would only be $800 plus travel and hotel (totaling around $1400), rather than a couple hundred grand being the wash.
She had one more bargaining chip that pushed me to go. I'm one of those types of people who believes the US economy hasn't got much longer to live and that when the dollar dies, complete chaos will commence, violence and all. My girlfriend, knowing this, very bluntly pointed out to me that logs, which are the largest majority of trees tend to stop or at least slow projectiles better than vinyl, fiberglass insulation, plywood, and drywall. The only reason I mention this is that everyone has their little quirk. This is mine.
With all these factors, I decided I could stand to risk a $1400 wash. I went to the class. It was not a wash at all!
My suggestion is to sell the class to your husband by disguising it with whatever quirk he has. If he thinks it's phony baloney right now, he won't when he get's back.
Best of luck!

[panderson03]

well-said, StrongBow!

[edkemper]

Strongbow,

When we get right down to this, it is usually the woman that knows what is best for "us" or for "the family." Men usually want more and the biggest of whatever it is we're talking about. Smart women are the one's that lead us in the right direction while we believe, by being out front we are leading. But we usually just haven't noticed the leash we wear.

I truly believe we are all best when we have a loving partner at our side and when that loving partner can keep us grounded.

What makes the members "all alike" is our desire for simplicity. But there are also just a few of us that are more simple than others. ;)

[Strongbow]

So true, ed!

[Tom Featherstone]

I'm not so sure about that. I'm a member too! :cool:
And there's LHN, and Ed, and ....... ;)

Hey! I'm anything but "Normal", just ask my wife. And what is "Normal"? We here are not the majority in this place we all call home.

Happy New Year!
Tom

[Strongbow]

Tom, in a nuthouse, the crazies are the normal ones! LOL

[Tom Featherstone]

I feel much better now that the patients aren't running the insane asylum! :p

Tom

[Strongbow]

That's just because they haven't found a straight jacket that fits me yet...
Either that or they got sick of me chewing through the straps every day.

[happyquilter]

Haha Strongbow, I like how your girlfriend sold you on the "fort" aspect of log homes. That just gave me an idea how to sell it to our 20 year old son (to motivate him to work on it, lol). Two words: " Zombie Apocalypse!"

[Strongbow]

Happyquilter, that's the idea!
He'll need a double barreled break action shotgun. Remind him to "double-tap" and do plenty of "cardio," for you Zombieland watchers.