Log cabin used to be a family affair in Finland. Everybody seemed to have that special log cabin somewhere on the countryside. Log cabins were self-built and maintained, big part of the fun being slate of chores needed to keep the cabin in shape. That has changed.

Nowadays the traditional approach on log cabins has stagnated and a new trend has overtaken the old way of spreading log homes to deep forests by lakes and rivers. Today the idea is to get a carefree vacation cabin that doesn’t need constant attention like log cabins used to need. Solution has been to focus on building new log cabins around skiing resorts. Around these resorts, cabins locate side by side, making it easy and profitable for service industry to take care of the cabins. Owners can forget maintenance and hit the slopes, go motor sledging, cross-country skiing etc.

How this has changed the log cabin industry? Prices have rocketed. Skiing resorts are mostly in Finnish Lapland, which basically is galaxy far, far away, no matter from where you look at it. It is not possible to build and maintain the cabin anymore, because of the distance. Distance is also the reason, why these cabins would be empty most of the year. When we combine the high price of such resort log cabin home, the difficulty of visiting it, and the couple of weeks usage that any given log cabin has - we get log cabin rentals. More and more Finns rent their log cabins during the time they are not using cabins by themselves. The variety of log cabin rentals in Lapland, Finland is at all time high.

All this is good news for travelers. When people visit skiing resorts in Finland they have much improved selection of accommodation, which in turn increases the volume of travelers. Finally increased traveler volume brings more possibilities for entrepreneurs, therefore services become more readily available. For now Lapland vacation log cabin sector is booming and there is slight bubble developing, but in the long term, prices will level off and Lapland’s tourism sector can enjoy steady flow of travelers.

I remember the first time that I was dealing with Americans. Whenever I met people on the street that I knew, they said, “Hi, how are you doing?” I stopped there in the middle of the road “Well, now that you asked…” but they didn’t stop neither looked back they just kept on walking to the opposite direction. I wondered why they pretended to be interested but then just walked away?

That above memory came to my mind when I was reading an article at Seth Godin. He tells an example about corporate communication that sets expectations high. If you listen to the customer but don’t act accordingly, you will leave them standing on the street wondering whether to keep on walking or running after a real communication.

For few times I have sat in a development meeting where customer feedback has been the topic of the day. Just as many times the conclusion of those meetings has been that we need to change our marketing communication to better fit the image that customers have on us. We promised to deliver in seven days, but too often the delivery was few days late. Solution: we started to talk about two weeks as a delivery time. Problem solved. My experience is that customer feedback rarely changes business operations.

I have noticed that many people start to chase their log home dream from the wrong side of the street. What these people do is that first they are mesmerized by some of those stunning pictures at log home magazines. The second thing they do is to start shuffling through some floor plans, because those log home magazines are all about floor plans and log home dreams.

Together those trends put people in situation where they have high hopes, possibly unrealistic budget expectations and tentative contacts with log home dealers about the price of building a log home. Inexperienced and inspired are two adjectives that make sales people think about money.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t be inspired, after all, burning desire and passion are often the last two resorts, which keep any project running while facing hardships. However, I would like you to decide between – are you a log home owner-buyer or are you a log home owner-builder?

If you envision yourself as a buyer then you don’t have to worry much, just be careful while choosing your realtor and follow normal home buying process. If you want to have the whole big log home dream of building the log home on your own land with your own hands, boy, are you in a heap of trouble…

Long gone are those days when it was possible to quickly build a half decent log home. Nowadays log homes incorporate modern utilities and technology and given the special nature of log construction – well - log homes are more difficult to build than normal timber frame or element houses. Prepare yourself! I’m going to write a series of articles that will get you started, but as you will see, it is a long road.

In the U.S. the log home industry has benefited from the strong economy and especially from the strong real estate market. At the same time, there has been some sort of revival of log home culture. Generation of baby-boomers is acquiring log cabins and log homes for retirement. Almost every established log home manufacturer is still alive and new players are emerging monthly. It has been all-out sunshine and none of that bad ultraviolet radiation.

How come any of that is even remotely related to Finland? It has been pretty much the same over here with the exception of our tiny home market. Finnish log home companies had to start exporting from early on to grow the business. Many companies were started to surf the latest money making trend. Unfortunately for our companies, the value of euro has been rocketing against U.S. dollar. This has made Finnish log cabins and log homes rather pricey compared to what they were before. Result – a severe drop in demand and therefore financial crisis.

Out-dated design makes a poor seller.

In coming years, I hope, U.S. foreign debt starts dropping and dollar will rebound. That is the time when foreign log cabin and log home manufacturers resurface U.S. markets as tough competitors. They have weathered difficult times by rationalizing their operations and improving their models. Quite a few U.S. log home manufacturer will be in serious rough in coming 5 to 10 years.

Before you all get carried away, I must point out that currently this program is only available in Finnish. It is based on the research done by the Construction faculty of the Tampere University of Technology.

Results speak for themselves. For example, my friend did crude cost calculation for his house project and walked away with estimation figure of 162 000 euros. Year and a half later he had his final inspection and the tab for construction cost was closed. The real total cost for the whole project came to 159 thousand euros – pretty accurate.

So I decided to set a price for a log home made by Honkarakenne Oyj with this tool, let’s see how it turned out:

First of all, I chose Honka’s Aikamatka as the test model. Aikamatka means “time travel” in English, but that is not why I chose it. I chose it because of the simple structural design, which is as close to ordinary house as possible. Also, later it is easier to do some comparative cost estimating with different materials, while maintaining the basic floor plan and design.

Biggest problem here is that Honka doesn’t give out their prices, so the program has to set an average pricing for a log cabin kit. Here is a PDF-file if you care to check out some details (still everything is in Finnish).

On the right bottom corner you can see a box with overall costs. I set the land price to 12 000 euros and that extra 1 200 euros goes to obtaining construction permits. Cost of construction with those specifications tallies 121 172 euros, but because I’m willing (and able) to do major part of constructing by myself, 36 350 euros can be deducted making the totaling 98 000 euros. 1 180 euro per square meter sounds quite high to me, what about you?

BOOK REVIEW – THE CRAFT OF POST AND BEAM
This book has the most amazing start! Mr. Mitchell tells about his life experiences and how they made him the man he is today. He combines the passion to build and create into philosophy and financial freedom. Such a great motivational writer he is that I read the book in one day, it is that exciting (If you are in a hurry, you can now jump to the end of review to check the summary).

I will briefly go through every chapter of this book, but at first, here are the contents:

Introduction/Author’s Preface
1. Evolution of Post and Beam
2. Design
3. Wood
4. Tools
5. Hewing and Milling Methods
6. Joinery
7. Modern Timber Post and Beam: Wall System
8. Traditional Timber Post and Beam: Wall System
9. Log Post and Beam: Wall System
10. Log Blockwork: Wall System
11. Openings
12. Roof Structures
13. Floor Systems
14. Foundations
15. Utilities and Finishing
16. Wood Finishes
Appendices
Bibliography
Glossary
Index

EVOLUTION OF POST AND BEAM
In this chapter, Mr. Mitchell tells us the brief history of log building and how it evolved on Northern hemisphere. This chapter also gives a light overall introduction on different log home building methods. How log homes were developed? You have to read this chapter to know.

DESIGN
Basic design philosophy of modular construction follows in this chapter. Also practical design issues like space and aesthetics can be found here. This chapter helps reader to grasp the idea of building functional log homes in modular manner.

WOOD
Wood is very flexible raw material. This chapter focuses on what are the qualities of wood, how to collect it, use it and preserve it.

TOOLS
Tools that you need to build a log home, starting from felling the trees all the way to finishing the log home or log cabin. This chapter also has descriptions on how to use tools and what sort of working methods are related with them.

HEWING AND MILLING METHODS
After rather general start, this is where the reader is bombarded with detailed and clear pictures of various building methods, focusing especially on preparing the logs.

JOINERY
Joinery has its own chapter and after reading it, you are well prepared to go forward and understand structures in various wall systems.

WALL SYSTEMS
At this point, basic building methods are dealt with and aspiring owner builder can wonder to the countryside and start felling trees for coming log home. Well, not quite, but this is the phase where we get to dig into the actual structure of timber post and beam wall systems and also into log post and beam and log blockwork wall systems.

This section is divided between different styles of post and beam building. Someone might feel that book could go deeper if it focused on only one tradition. However, for me this was only positive, because I have been building in blockwork style and gaining wider understanding on other styles was easier because I could compare between them and the one that I personally master. To my opinion, this makes the book more appealing for wider audience.

OPENINGS
Walls standing and all, it is time to make those window and door openings or alternatively introduce it as a vacation location for in-laws (can’t get in or can’t get out). This comes before the chapter about roof systems, which makes sense because openings are easier to do while still building the walls.

ROOF STRUCTURES
Roof systems have a chapter worthy of their complexity. Settling is a major problem while designing roofs for log homes and log cabins. Luckily by using post and beam method one can work out settling problems quite nicely.

FLOOR SYSTEMS
Floors are on the menu after we have sheltered the log home from rain. Main issue in this chapter is to understand needed support for floors. But then we have something that strikes me as somewhat peculiar.

FOUNDATIONS
Foundations are discussed at the end of the book. How can this be, log homes and log cabins are built on foundations, if not they rot (hey, it rhymed).

UTILITIES AND FINISHING
On other note, I do understand that utilities are finally discussed here. This is the usual phase of construction for them. However, in this chapter you will notice that utilities must be taken into consideration while designing the log home or log cabin. It is very awkward to start ripping logs apart to mount some electricity sockets.

WOOD FINISHES
Wood finishes are done last as the building is finally standing. Good finishing gives extra years for your log home.

MISCELLANOUS
Other resources in the book include several helpful appendices. Now that we have Internet, bibliography isn’t that useful, but does give good sources and gives credit to other experts on this area. Index is always helpful in search of information, but for me as a non-native English speaker, glossary was the best resource. Understanding terms and sticking them on things I already know greatly lowered my learning curve.

SUMMARY
Mr. Mitchell, thank you for writing such an excellent book I am really happy I bought it. This book helped me to organize my existing knowledge and gain more information on many areas. This is a great general resource book on building log homes and log cabins by using post and beam techniques. Absolutely worth its price and much more but how much more that depends on your motivation and passion. Get it now and finally make your log home dream a reality. Order it.

This article has been updated 01.06.06
INTRODUCTION
This article explains everything that is related to settling with log homes and log cabins. For now it is a mere published framework. Reasoning behind this publishing is that when the article is out there in the open, I just must update and develop it.

TO DESCRIBE SETTLING SHORTLY
Logs dry and shrink as water leaves the green log. When you pile many logs horizontally, their combined shrinking (shrinkage) is called settling.

RELATIVE HUMIDITY
Relative humidity is a measurement for amount of water in air. 100% of relative humidity results into rain. Relative humidity can be much higher than 100% in materials that have higher density than air. Average relative humidity for just felled green log is 150%.

RELATIVE HUMIDITY IN LOGS
In wood, water stays inside cells and between cells, so it is very difficult to dry wood, as it has some many insulating layers on it. In nature, wood has water inside it, no matter how dry it is. This is because relative humidity of air doesn’t drop down to zero.

LONG DRYING TIMES
Natural drying of logs takes a long time all the way up to 4 years even. After felling logs, they seem to dry quickly, but it is only on the surface and between tree cells. All this initial drying doesn’t affect to the size of the tree, because as long as tree cells are full of water, tree still has almost all of its original volume that it had before felling. When relative humidity of the log reaches 30% it finally starts shrinking visibly. It takes almost a year for large log to reach this point.

SETTLING
As trees loose the water inside tree cells, the shrinkage of logs finally starts. The more you stack logs on top of another, the more you will have settling, because every log will shrink a bit. Calculate together these bits and you will have settling. The length of the log is not affected by shrinking so lengthwise logs do not settle. This fact is often used with several log home construction methods.

SEASONAL SETTLING
Relative humidity of air changes between seasons. However, this doesn’t affect on logs more than on surface. As earlier mentioned, it takes several months for tree to adjust to the changes in relative humidity of air. Unless there are two distinctive seasons like rain and dry seasons, humidity changes between seasons are not long enough to affect on logs.

INTRODUCTION
This article leans heavily towards communication skills but I still post it here, because many of these life values help in realizing dreams, maybe you will get something out of it to make your log home dream come true.

LIGHT STUDY
Cut the dreaming and get with the program. Darren Rowse had a blogging community effort in which everybody could write about blogger habits. It was a long read as there were almost 100 submitted articles (check them all over here) , but finally here is a layman’s statistic view on those habits presented on all published articles. I left out those comments that really have nothing to do with log homes, also I had to use some creative classifying while putting habits into respective categories. Here is a quick picture of the results, followed by actual qualitative numbers.

PICTURE

NUMBERS
45 network
28 frequency
28 writing brand
25 original content
25 patience
21 writing schedule
18 writing goal
18 research
17 follow media
16 blog purpose
15 use tools
15 reinvent your blog
14 enjoy writing
14 be humble and ethic
07 always prepared to write
06 write uninterrupted
04 make money
04 prioritize

SHORT ANALYSIS
Interesting point to notice on such general study is that networking counts most and technology is relatively low on standings. One might just believe that it is not about what we know but whom we know. Also notice the low importance of money.

HOW DOES IT FIT WITH LOG HOMES?
If one makes the jump from blogging into logging, most of the reasoning remains the same. One has to know right people to get support and then it is about persistence and quality work.

PERSONAL FAVORITES
Personally I found some refreshing articles among those that were posted. Here are my TOP3. Please go and check them out, I bet you will be pleasantly surprised.

Daragan Magayon

All Kinds of Writing

Transposable Element

WOMEN ARE THE BEST
Based on my choices, is it so that women blog better? Right now Darren happens to run a poll that fits well into this topic. Looks like men overpower women in head tally, but that has never proved anything, has it?

INTRODUCTION
Darren Rowse wrote about habits of effective bloggers, I thought that I would chip in by writing about habits of effective loggers – those who want to make their log home dream a reality.

Many people dream for a different lifestyle, but only few of us can really make it. We tend to get entangled with our daily lives and just can’t think a way out of the routines.

Here are few things for you to look after to get rid of your present way of living and finding your path towards being a logger (every single log home lover wants to log their own trees, just admit it and life gets to be easier immediately). Try to find few of these habits from yourself, and preferably in following order. I guarantee you that you are off the couch for good and swinging away that axe, but only if you manage to stick up with these life habits.

PASSIONATE
You need to have heart in your life. That is what takes you the extra mile like an energizer bunny. If you waddle through daily life just thinking about that fridge and telly, then you better stick with what you know the best – THE remote. Don’t worry if your passion doesn’t show as hugs and kisses because there are plenty of ways to have strong feelings. This step is the hardest because the first step of any journey starts a small revolution. TAKE it!

DETERMINED
So you have your passion? Great! Now… decide that you HAVE to do it, no matter what. Where there is will, there is a way, they say. They say it right on the mark! Will is a result of passion and determination. Very seldom we actually have the genuine will to do something that is given from outside. You have to find both from within.

FOCUSED
Two most important aspects covered already, right? Too often we do have the will but everything else takes priority over our personal goal and when it finally becomes time for our dreams it is already too late and we have to go bed or coffin even (but at that point, what does it matter anymore…). Put your log dream on the expressway and focus on that first and go shopping later. This is the true secret of getting forward. You might be tempted to watch that big match and after that start logging. Remember, first things first.

Another key issue of being focused is to do correct things. Personally I always wonder the people who have a dream, but they try to accomplish it by doing something totally irrelevant, in order to make money and be able to afford their dream log home. I suggest dipping your toes into the dream as soon as possible. Go and buy some cheap land and make good use of the trees on the lot.

VISUALIZING
Before any action, go through it in your head. Think what you want to accomplish with your move and only after that get into business. Agreed, it is better to do anything than to do nothing, but when your anything becomes something particular THEN you are on to something. Choose the best trees and get on to it.

ACTIVE
This is the last stop on your way to reaching your dreams. IF you get other areas right, all you need to do is to repeat the whole process over and over again. The more often you cycle your routine the better are your accomplishments.

PATIENT
Remember to have patience, without it you will only get frustrated and give up. Believe that at the end of your journey you will get what you want.

I decided to put new Google Trends service in use and look into log home industry. First I made some searches to determine, which companies are frequently searched for. I came up with lots of names but I decided to narrow my list to the TOP5 contenders. Anyway here’s the result of my original search:

Southland Log Homes
Tennessee Log Homes
Lincoln Logs Ltd
Satterwhite Log Homes
Katahdin Cedar Log Homes
Montana Log Homes
Heritage Log Homes
California Log Homes
Wisconsin Log Homes
Arizona Log Homes

Immediately it is clear that these companies are not necessarily the biggest U.S. log home companies, but they cleverly benefit from the manner in which people search for information. I bet that most people that type “California log homes” to their favorite search engine are just looking for various log home suppliers from the State of California. This is why I already plan to write similar article but from different point of view. Well then, let’s go to that TOP5.

Terrible disappointment I must say, none of the companies are searched for frequently enough for Google Trends to be able to draw a trend line. What now? Only solution is to tap into public log home companies, there ought to be some more interest. After searching with listed log home companies the result is still very bleak. Only two companies came up in searches Lincoln Logs and Honka. Here is a trend line picture of the two. Honka with red and Lincoln Logs with blue.

It is very problematic to compare these companies. Honka (Honka is the product name, while Honkarakenne is the actual company name) is the biggest industrial log home manufacturer in the world. This means that Honka gets lots of searches from all over the world, while Lincoln Logs gains most of the interest from home markets. All in all, I must conclude that Google Trends is not a good tool to look into log home companies. However, there is still one final trend search that we can make – log homes and log cabins. Here are the results.

Log homes are the most popular topic. It seems that log cabin is more prominent, but Log Cabin Republicans skew the figure out of proportion. All in all, interest seems to have remained strong and stable, take a point of regular peak in interest around Christmas and New Year. Holiday season is filled with sentimental pictures of log homes and fireplaces.