Thanks Rick, That sounds like good advice.....roger

Rick, my wife(Margaret) and I have been married 33 years this December.....I don't design/build anything without her total concurrance and imput. :lol: I was born at night...but it wasn't LAST NIGHT....

Roger,

Don't let Rick sell you or anybody else short. There are certainly not just two kinds of log home builders. My wife, Sara, and I neither built a house from stock plans nor were we ever in over our heads. When we took Skip's seminar one of his most emphasized points was how easy it is to customize his style of log home. He teaches you how to build the log "box", one that is easier, cheaper, longer lived and stronger than any other home you could build or buy. How you fill the box is the fun part, that is how you change the building from a house into your home.. Because the interior walls are nothing more than partitions you are free to put in as many or as few as you like. That is why it is easier to customize a Skip home than any other home you could build. So, it is my opinion, that a Skip style house is, in fact, when us amateurs should try on the "customizer" hat for size.

I have nothing against the associations stock plans, they have certainly been helpful to some of the members. You will without question save plenty of design time if you go with the stock plans. They have been designed by those who have been there and done that, people that know the ins and outs of this building style. Just as important, if you have questions about the plans you will be able get answers from the people who developed them.

Having said that, WHERE IS EVERYBODY'S SENSE OF ADVENTURE? We wanted to build a home that was uniquely ours. Sara designed and drew up our plans. We had the plans engineered as required by our local code and submitted them to the building department. They went through plan check without a hitch. With help from our family and friends we set out to build the house we designed. Through the knowledge we received from Skip's seminar, our vision, lots of planning , preparation, self-confidence, determination and, most importantly, togetherness from start to finish we have succeeded in building a home we are completely happy with.

If you look through this group's archives and make contact with some of the members who have started and/or finished Skip style homes you will see that it is easily possible to build a custom house even if it is your first house.

Good luck tatermates.

Jeff Ambarian

Hello, Roger--

Jeff first attended Skip's seminar in March of 2000, then we both attended in December of that year. On the way home from the March seminar, we set a goal to try and relocate and build within five years. We got our certificate of occupancy on this house in February of this year. :D The way the timing worked out was different than we'd projected, but because we didn't have unreasonable expectations for our circumstances, it evened out to about the timing we'd originally hoped for.

We didn't take any specific time to acquire tools. We have purchased, borrowed, etc., along the way, because Jeff was also working full-time so we had good cash flow (if slower house progress.)

When we started we had a house in the suburbs, so land to build on was Job One. We expected finding and buying land and selling our house to take a lot longer than it did. But we were moved out here to a rental in the country and preparing to build on this land in less than a year. Permitting and utilities and some other factors took time. As did acquiring logs, since local timber was out of the question (too much taper and pre-cut timber in this area is much too short anyway.) The condition of our logs after transit (actually after unloading by the only idiot with a self-loading log truck in the area), the size of our logs, and the amount of manpower/machine power we had access to also slowed construction.

But from foundation inspection to c of o took 3 1/2 years. We'd be completely finished now if it hadn't been a particularly busy year for Jeff at work and with other commitments. But finish work is always time-consuming under the best of circumstances.

Jeff brought good skills and experience to the project, although neither of us had ever built a house before. He had basic construction, plumbing, electrical, drywall, tile, and woodworking skills, as well as a good comfort level with hand and power tools, machinery, ladders, ropes and heights. I had design and drafting skills, and was comfortable with and willing to use hand tools, stain, paint, fetch and carry, etc. We worked many days alone together, and most other days with only one other person. (Not that many people wanted to come back after one day working with us... it was apparently much harder work than they expected? :wink: )

Jeff's not calculated the square foot cost. We still need to do our "finish" wood stairs, our final decks at the front and back doors, and a few other items that will bump up the cost, so he's not done the math yet. But he said on his way out the door this morning that he guesses we're between $50 and $60/sq ft.

Have fun at the seminar, Roger. We thought it was a blast! When we went Skip was still teaching, but we've since met Ellsworth and corresponded with Steve, and they're doing a great job! :D Just be sure to pay attention. We noticed that there were people chatting in the kitchen sipping coffee and munching on Skip's famous cookies when he was outlining some of the most important parts of the process, like the spiking instructions. Can't recall if you said your wife was accompanying you or not, but Jeff and I tag-teamed our breaks (even though Jeff had attended the seminar once before) so that we always had someone paying attention and taking down notes.

Best--
Sara :D

Roger--

Three and a half years IS a long time. And others here have had other experiences. As I mentioned, we had some complications in our timing. Non-local timber, manpower, size of our house, size of our logs, condition of our logs at delivery, Jeff's work schedule, permitting issues, etc., all slowed our progress down.

Our family of four plus a big dog spent a year and a half in a tiny (and very cold) rental house, then we lived 2 1/2 years here on site in a 25 foot 1970 motorhome. I know where your wife is coming from. Believe me.

We paid a lot for our logs, and had to do a lot with lumber, so those costs were high, too. Not to mention, our home is nearly 3000 square feet on two and a half stories.

A lot of the time/cost issues of this method of building depend on local/personal factors ... and also design.

Jeff worked full-time and I work from home, though I put a lot of my work on-hold during construction--so time and energy was sometimes at a premium. We contracted only for drywall hanging and texturing, plumbing and part of our electrical, so there was almost never a time when more than one project was going on at once.... while in a neighboring subdivision we saw a stick-frame house galloping to completion with 4 or 5 contractors seemingly working simultaneously several days a week. We had two very dedicated helpers, but they worked with us at different times. Our logs were damaged, as I mentioned, so it took a whole day to prep, move and set a single log... whereas if they had been in better shape, we could easily have set several per day.

Our house is large and tall and the high and so Jeff did over half of the roof construction alone (with me on the ground as safety man and operating the forklift to get materials and Jeff up and down) until a fireman friend volunteered to help us finish. LHBANA members here on this forum, Rod and Peggy Weeks, have a slightly larger house than ours, but the lowest floor is walk-out basement rather than logs, so I believe that their "shell" time was shorter than ours by quite a bit (they also had smaller logs in better condition). And they have been able to live in their walk-out while finishing the log portions of the house. I've alerted them to this discussion, and hope that they'll chime in with their experiences. They needed to get "in" fast and they did. Their story might be more encouraging to you and your wife than ours. :D

Good luck in whatever you choose to do!
Sara :D

Hi, all,

We definitely agree with Jeff and Sara. We took Skip's class and even without any architectural or design experience or home building experience, we never felt we were in over our heads. We designed and drew our house prints ourselves and the drawings passed our inspectors with no problems. Are there obstacles and hurdles to overcome during the building process? You bet. But what an adventure. We wouldn't trade it for the world. We were fortunate and were able to log our tree logs from our own property. (Something I never figured we'd be doing in our 50's. And my husband had planted them as a child, hating every minute of it. LOL) We had 10 months of logging and then started our home. We debarked as we went along.

We have a walkout basement. The wall logs were up in 3 months. That was with the two of us working regular jobs and working on the house every night. We had one or two friends that helped us quite a bit, as well. The next year we worked on getting the roof on and getting things enclosed and done enough where we could get a temporary c of o to live in the basement. Last year we installed windows, did all of the nailing for the chinking and got the chinking started. This year we've been chinking and are about a week or so away from having it done. The outside. We're installing our homemade double front doors in the front now and then will finish up the chinking. So it's about 3 years we've been working on the house, kind of like Jeff and Sara. But we're not on the main floor yet. Hopefully in a couple years we'll have the main floor finished. Until then we're enjoying the adventure and have a home we're very proud of. Stock plans are fine but aren't a necessity. Jeff Ambarian put it into words very well in his post. And we've ended up with a home uniquely ours that we've designed and built and love. We have no regrets.

Happy building, all,

Rod & Peg