Auctioning second quality log home kits and only tonight, the newspaper ad declared. Auction will be held at company’s premises so purchaser can check the merchandise. It was simple black and white text ad, tiny and cheap looking. Certainly it got masses moving. Mill yard was packed with people, and everybody was excited, but me or that’s how it looked like to me.

You see I wasn’t excited because starting price was set almost to the level of normal selling price. Because of all the commotion and tight scheduling, many people came unprepared and unknowing what they actually were trying to buy. As we all know, log homes and log cabins are rather unified products, so most log home companies try to differentiate themselves by introducing several packages, some including windows, doors, flooring, roofing, walls etc, some including just walls. It really is difficult to make an educated decision.

All kits were sold over retail price, but because it was an auction there were some amazing tie-ins with auctioned kits, including super value like flooring material. Clever business, which reminded me of supermarket in-store ads “Buy 2, just 2 euro” and when you check the price of one, it is actually 99 cents. Know what you are buying, and remember, all manufacturers have their special corner notch that is basically the same as with other manufacturers.

Just ten hours later from watering the cube for the first time, here is the result. Dry wood and water do not make a good couple.

Remember the tree cube from my faltering 1 Big Dream project? As project was cut, there was need to downsize the key personnel in the project, namely the tree cube. This is why the cube is now assigned to other duties like to grow into a tree. Here’s the cube after first watering.

I have gotten two contacts from Asia, concerning a trade of pine block. Unfortunately, customs have been very much against sending soil and seeds without airtight packaging and sterilizing treatment. Looks like this item is bit more complicated than I originally thought. Therefore I would like to make an announcement. I will turn this trading project into sponsoring project. I’ll let Finnish log home manufacturers pimp my log home for me.

Just came to my mind that there is actually a big log cabin home manufacturer, which almost spells the name of this site. However, I am confident that aspiring log home owners won’t mix these two sites. After all, if people come here looking for log cabin homes, they will be guided to the Log Cabin Homes Ltd. or given information about log cabin homes in general. No manufacturing or sales competition here boys.

I would like to give all the possible kudos for the company for choosing such an excellent location – Rocky Mount. You can’t get more rustic, can you? I don’t know about you, but for a Finnish lad who never excelled in the geography of the U.S.A, Rocky Mount sounds a lot like Rocky Mountains. Glance at map proves my intuition wrong, but the labeling is already done. As I go to the company website, they follow their name and address with obligatory terms like tranquility, convenience, personal, tradition etc. I’m already sold to the idea of Log Cabin Homes.

As a private company, Log Cabin Homes doesn’t need to publish detailed financials. This is good, because they own a herd of buffalos, which double as company’s symbol, and having buffalos can be costly. One more thing, company was established as late as 1987 and therefore it doesn’t really belong to the group of traditional and old American companies.

Log homes from Finland is the new category. In this new segment I am going to focus on Finnish log home manufacturers. Finnish companies can provide amazing value for your money. The reason for this is the Finnish mentality – everything should be simple and efficient. Think of a Nokia mobile phone or Finnish design, not too many excess lines there, eh?

One by one I’ll introduce you every single Finnish log home and log cabin manufacturer. There are over 200 such companies here in Finland, so you guys will be entertained or infotained for quite some time. Granted, most of these companies are tiny and probably refuse to export, even we all sign a petition.

This little log cabin is the reason that kept me away from updating this site. I have come a long way from those match log cabins.

At the moment the cabin is weather locked, but I can’t show the pictures yet. They are on my new video camera and as my technology skills are rather lo-fi I haven’t been able to get the pictures out of camera quite yet.

The whole building process was full of surprising difficulties. One always expects them while building but there is always something that just doesn’t meet the expectations.

Well, this little log cabin is just a first step in a bigger plan. There are already plans for a large log home on this property. This current log home will function as a sauna. Location is just great, just 30 or so feet from the lake. Can’t wait to test bathe it.