Here is another story of relentless drive that makes log home dreams come true. One man bought a log home kit and he has been trying to get it up all by himself. Progress has been slow, but project is moving on with the little help of good old elbow grease.

Dennis Morris bought his log home kit from Quail Creek Log Homes and he has been getting advice from there during the building process. Moreover, he has been contracting some of the work out. Check out the details over here.

Check out this encouraging story of two men who built log home without any builder experience. It was a long process, well planned and lots of fun (tiring too).

Log home floor plan designing took years, but they had time because they were expecting their stored poplar logs to dry and shrink. Finally the building started. They hired a builder to construct the concrete foundation and block basement, and their families and themselves did the log work.

This article shows us that anyone can do it, but only if there is the will to do it.

Sometimes I do wonder this industry. It seems that our industry exists just because of a freak accident. I am talking about log home industry from Finnish point of view.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Our country is relatively large when compared to population. This means that we have lots and lots of forests. Finland’s location on northern hemisphere gives us lots of pine and fir tree forests. Accidentally these trees, especially pines, make excellent log cabin home raw material. Hence we have abundant supply of log home building material.

FURTHER HISTORY
This is the basic setting. From historic point of view, log homes and log cabins were very popular in Finland until rebuilding efforts after the Second World War. We had to move masses of people away from Carelia, an area taken by Soviet Union (nowadays Russia). To accommodate so many people, in such a sort time was hectic operation. Problems arose from these people having no land, and therefore they had no access on timber. Logs are difficult to transport over distances, unlike saw-processed timber. This resulted into increasing timber frame building.

CLOSER HISTORY
Another historic milestone was the demographic change and urbanization of Finland. People moved to cities from countryside and single-home houses turned into apartment blocks, no timber used at all. Log home building nearly vanished but there was a savior in form of recreational log cabin building.

WAY OF LIFE
You might have heard Finland to be referred as a country of thousands of lakes. All those urbanized people wanted to have a summer cottage by lake. Log cabins came to rescue. Log structure is very solid and can withstand dry, cold and unused winters as well as humid, hot and active summers. Logs also played an important role in bringing some nostalgic atmosphere for this idyllic log home living. Making log cabins provided jobs to countryside, lumber was acquired and cabins built locally. Soon Finland was full of tiny father and son operated log cabin companies. Some of these companies managed to grow.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
Markets in Finland are tiny and soon biggest log cabin rush was over. Some companies had managed to build their operations to industrial level so that machinery was largely used in milling the logs instead of handcrafting. These companies worked hard to build nationwide brands and many of them managed to do this. Among these companies we got our first log home and log cabin exporters. Today Finland boasts with the world’s biggest industrial log home manufacturer Honka and several others that are somewhat smaller.

EXPORTS
Exports of Finnish log homes started with nearby area deliveries – Sweden and rest of the Scandinavia, Russia and Germany. These areas still form bulk of Finnish log cabin and log home exports. True jackpot came from Japanese markets. Finnish log home companies have been able to sell cabins to Japan by thousands. Apparently there is something in Finnish log cabin design that pleases Japanese aesthetics. The look of Finnish log cabin as well as log home is very clean and streamlined, there is something very “Scandinavian design�? in them. One reason for this is that once our log home companies had filled the original market demand for rustic log cabin homes, they had to expand their product slate and offer log homes that fit into suburban setting.

FUTURE
Finnish log homes have not had much success on American soil, because of the lack of rustic feeling. Honka has been trying to educate U.S. homebuyers, but with relatively modest results. More and more Finnish companies are adapting to foreign markets, because tough domestic competition has improved their quality and design. I believe that in the future, Finland will have couple of log home industry giants.

Federal Reserve raised interest rates this weeks Tuesday. This time Committee gave rather soothing outlook for the future and it seems like we are not going to see further rate hikes any time soon. While rate increases are tough for people who have mortgage, this latest rate hike cleared some dark clouds over the housing sector.

I hope Europe is not going to start battling inflation tendencies that we have in few big countries. If Western interest rates will stabilize there is a good chance that we will not have housing sector led recession. It does terrify me to think about the effects that interest rate parity with U.S. would have in Europe.

So you once again wonder what does this have to do with log homes? Well, unless you are building a primitive log cabin, the chances are that you are resorting to a log cabin kit, which is very expensive. On top of that log frame comes work that puts up the roof and interiors. Log homes are not cheap. However, they are not as expensive to build as stone houses, because there is less expensive working hours needed. Timber frame building however beats log home building in terms of costs. So watch out those monthly payments.

UCLA Anderson Forecast sees clouds in the horizon of U.S. economy for year 2007. Housing sector will cool off and that might put brakes on for the economy as a whole, because real estate and construction sectors feel the bite and could suffer job losses.

In their news briefing, UCLA Anderson Forecast does not give any indication on what might have caused the slowing of the housing market. I would claim that long-lasting housing boom has already enabled many people to acquire a house, which might lessen the housing demand. Another clear factor for market turn is the rise of interest rates. Money costs once again as well as houses, and together these factors form a vicious circle.

How this slowing affects log home market? Luckily log homes are still speciality products and life style arguments are very strong while considering log home purchasing. On the other hand, alternative housing price goes down and temptation to acquire normal housing also grows. It is hard to say what will be the overall effect. My guess (not even educated) is that log home demand will still remain stronger than overall housing demand.

FORTUNE magazine has chosen Hovnanian Enterprises as one of the 100 fastest-growing companies in the U.S. for a third consecutive year. Such a growth mirrors the growth of U.S. housing market. Company is also doing many things right on its own right. Market share has been growing steadily and product portfolio has been diversifying.

One thing that puzzles me is that why house builders, despite widening product portfolios, largely neglect the market segment of log homes. Is it because normal house building is easy to subcontract to smaller builders, resulting into a management firm? Log home manufacturers make log home kits that are then mostly assembled by subcontracting companies. Are log home companies on housing business at all or are they at wood processing business?

Hurricane Rita hit Louisiana and demolished nearly everything that came on its way. There was one particularly resilient and lucky house that weathered the hurricane. While owners returned to the log home, their hopes sank, nothing but destroyed houses one after other. However, their log home stood tall and everything was on its place. Miracle? Heritage Log Homes thinks that their patented thru-bolt anchoring system is to thank for.

Personally I would also add the structural flexibility of every log home to the explaining reasons. Bolted or not, logs are not permanently fixed with mortar and plaster. There is always possibility for some bending before braking occurs. In hurricane, log homes are like Japanese katanas – they have hard edge that cuts the wind and flexible part that protects edge from braking. Read the original article over here.

Denim Pine wood maintains all its normal structural qualities after the fungus infection. Mountain pine beetles are especially fond of lodgepole pines so Denim Pine supply is mostly this sort of lumber. Naturally this limits the choice of raw material for log home builders.

Denim Pine has two excellent advantages over normal trees. Firstly, they have special colouring, which can tempt some buyers that are looking for novelty solutions with their log homes. Secondly, this kind of beetle-killed wood is dead and dry at the time of its cutting. This speeds up manufacturing processes and also lowers associated costs, as there is no special need for natural or artificial drying of the logs.

HOW PINES GET KILLED?
Mountain pine beetle eats its way through bark and lays eggs. Hitching a ride is blue-staining fungi that will start to feast on the host tree. After hatching, larvae also start munching away and both stages damage the host tree (warning - some ill-written text ahead). In a year, tree is dead or standing zombie and turning indigo in colour.

WHAT HAPPENS TO PINES?
Silently standing pine zombies start to rot slowly. Two years after fungi infestation the process is well on way and trees slowly become worthless. Anyone wanting to benefit from these exotically coloured trees must work fast. Logging, proper treatment and drying can save the bulk of the tree as raw material for various lumber using industries.

WHAT BECOMES OF PINES?
You name it and they make it. Because of its distinctive coloring, beetle-killed wood has the potential of becoming a trend. Lynn and Shane Pont of Quesnel hold trademark for the term – denim pine. They have been promoting the brand and products that are made of it. Floorings have been quite successful and several handcrafted denim pine items, but are these enough to consume massive denim pine supply?

MARKET RESULT OF DENIM PINES
Despite trade dispute, these two parties have every possibility of turning the case into win-win situation. While denim pine is trying to flood lumber markets and lower the prices across market segments, still it is possible that completely new markets will develop for denim pine. If denim pine is able to launch whole new product categories, then it could exist peacefully with other lumber market segments and maybe even create some extra buzz around various wood items. Still two problems remain – firstly, is the denim pine supply too high and unstable, and secondly, how long does it take to develop new denim pine products for buying customers?

Next post will cover denim pine log homes.

BEETLE PROBLEM
Title has those magic words that spell the reason for cheap Canadian lumber. Warm winters and dry summers have set favorable reproducing conditions for beetles and beetle population has grown out of control. Now those beetles are out there and wiping out forests.

PROBLEM SOLUTION
The weapon that Canadian forestry authorities can use against the beetle is clearcutting. Other plans are in the works and scientists are experimenting on products that could use beetle-felled trees as their raw material (burning is always possible, but might not be as profitable as something else). Time is of essence here and product development is unlikely to come to rescue. All this results in rising piles of trees, which need buyers. This in turn results into sinking lumber prices and rising U.S. lumber tariffs.

WHAT ABOUT LOG HOMES?
On the log homes and cabin front, Denim Pine is already using beetle-killed pines as raw material for log homes. Firstly such an idea doesn’t sound too appealing, because we all try to keep our log homes free of any dubious growth, but let’s take a moment to study the matter. That will be the topic for my next post though.

Picture and various information of this otherwise cute beetle can be found here. Read detailed article of mountain pine beetle infestation.