Here’s a cabin that I built years ago.
And below, is one of two messages that I received just this morning, both of which asked similar questions. (I’ve edited it a bit for privacy sake, but I thought everyone might benefit from my response)…
Dear sir, I am in Central xxxxxxx. After doing some research I have not been able to find any builders of the style cabins you are recommending. Most, if not all of the ones I have found here are building kit homes. I am seriously interested in the style cabin that you advocate. Are there any source materials you would recommend to help me in that direction? Do you know of any builders in my area you would recommend? Lastly, I would be interested in possibly purchasing one of your floor-plans. If I have missed obvious answers to these questions on the website, then forgive me. I thank you in advance for any of your time and correspondence back that I receive.
Thank you for getting in touch. Congratulations on making the decision to move forward on building an authentic log cabin. You are going to love your new/old log home!
I’m afraid that I don’t know of any builders in your area that I can recommend… in fact I’m sorry to say that I don’t know of any other builders anywhere that I can recommend… It’s not that there aren’t any… I’ve seen cabins built by others that I felt were done well and that were attractive… but, I have no names to go with the finished homes. I’ve searched online for handcraft builders… in fact my main focus a year ago when I started posting online was to put together a community of builders who created handmade houses, but is seems that they are either all gone, or are keeping themselves well hidden.
Be aware that you are not alone in your situation. I get several similar emails per week from all over the country. The membership list is steadily growing on my website and here on Facebook the community has grown to 50,000 in only a year’s time. Clearly there is hunger by many to have special handcrafted place of their own.
So, here are my recommendations for you that I feel will help you achieve the cabin of your dreams… Continue following along here on Facebook and consider visiting my website handmadehouses and go through as many postings that I’ve made there as you can (over a 1,000 to sort through)
On that site you will learn a little something with each photo commentary while you begin the process of narrowing down exactly what you want in your own cabin. Make sure and sign up at handmadehouses.com in order to get any updates that I might send out. I’m not a spammy kind of guy, so no worries about getting a bunch of junk in your email box.
I am in the process of scanning my favorite dozen or so sets of plans that I have drawn and built over my career, and will be offering them for sale at a very reasonable price in the near future. All were hand drawn by me, were approved for permitting, and have been built, lived-in and cherished. Your particular building department might like more details on these plans, and if so, that should be easy and inexpensive for you or a local architect to amend.
I would also encourage you to consider being your own builder. It’s easier than you think, you will save a good bit of money (how much depends upon the amount of hands-on work that you do), and to top it off, you’ll have a great time doing it. I built my first two houses in my early 20’s with no experience and I did a great job. After completing those projects I decided to make building handmade homes my career. I’ve now spent several decades perfecting the craft and have kept what I learned as a trade secret. But I’ve now reached that point that it’s time to share what I know and I’ve been doing a lot of just that here on Facebook and on my website.
I’m also finishing up an online course that will encourage and guide attendees step-by-step through the process of building a truly handcrafted home. The course is called the Handmade House Academy and it will start sometime in January… you really ought to sign on when it becomes available (more details to be released soon)
And finally, once you get your land, you figure out exactly what you want to build, you’ve taken the Handmade House Academy course, and have taken care of starting the process of building (permitting, foundation work, a floor system in place) I’d be happy to help you find a great old cabin and a crew to set the logs in place… from there it’s just one step at a time… carpentry, roofing, plumbing… etc
If you’d like to know more don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at noah@handmadehouses.com
Originally posted 2015-12-17 19:52:38.