LOG HOUSE SELLERS

Log house

These companies use huge outside images of log houses in their advertising. Clearly the message is directed to builders who want to tackle the building process by themselves or, at very least, be highly involved with the build. This segment values perks that are tied with the actual process of building the log house, therefore manufacturers offer benefits like roof tiles or foundation blocks to sweeten their offers.

Log home

LOG HOME SELLERS
Log manufacturing companies that fall into this category express themselves with wonderful photos of indoor log home cozyness. You can see the happy family doing chores or just taking it easy. Buyers are lured to sign the contract by offering household appliances, services by interior designers etc. These really appeal to convenience minded people of today.

OWNER-BUILDERS ARE A DYING BREED
There are fewer and fewer self-builders. In the future, people are buying ready log homes or custom log homes that are done to meet their requirements. Is it time for your company to rethink advertising?

AFTERTHOUGHT
Do you find it peculiar or fitting that in the Europe we talk about log houses and in the new world they talk about log homes?

HIRSITALOMYYJÄT

Hirsitalo

Nämä yritykset käyttävät mainonnassaan suuria ulkokuvia hirsitaloista. Mainonta on suunnattu rakentajalle, joka on suunnittelemassa rakennusprojektia. Ostajan edut ovat usein rakentajalle suunnattuja etuja, kuten kattotiilet kaupan päälle.

Hirsikoti

HIRSIKOTIMYYJÄT
Nämä yritykset käyttävät mainonnassaan suuria sisäkuvia hirsikodeista. Mainonta on suunnattu rentoutuneeseen lopputulokseen, sillä kuvissa on monesti onnellinen perhe. Ostajan edut on suunnattu erityisesti asumismukavuutta tuoviin asioihin, kuten kaupan päälle tulevaan ilmalämpöpumppuun tai huonekalujen lahjakorttiin.

RAKENTAJAT LOPPUVAT
Omatoimisten rakentajien määrä vähenee jatkuvasti. Tulevaisuudessa ostetaan hirsikoteja, eikä hirsitaloja, olisiko sinun yrityksen aika uudistaa mainontaa?

Pretty much everybody have now heard about Lincoln Logs’ bankruptcy filing or Chapter 11 reorganization, as the politically correct term goes. Their attorney said intention is not to lay anyone off and to continue operations as usual while negotiating with creditors.

DOUBT
I don’t know about you guys, but if I would be in financial trouble and asked refinancing from my creditors without changing my consumption habits… well, I doubt there would be any reorganization. Personally I expect to see some jobs go or some asset sales.

SURPRISE
For me it was a surprise to see company as big as Lincoln Logs to hit the brick wall. I know that smaller log home companies have already switched from making log homes into renovations etc.

For the most part, I did expect that fervent log home lovers would have kept the industry going, at least for the big players with good brand names. Guess I was wrong, no matter how dedicated customers you have it all comes down to them also having money.

EFFECT
How would you feel if your supplier told that they are having slight difficulties with creditors? I bet that would make you feel insecure. Are you in the stage of making decision between two manufacturers and having very difficult time choosing one… If the other was Lincoln Logs, your life suddenly became lot easier.

No doubt they will loose orders because of this and if they have difficulties now, just wait few months and they really feel the bit of postponed orders or cancellations. Let’s hope they manage to pull through.

Vinyl siding, vinyl shingle roofing, vinyl roll flooring, vinyl ceiling tiles, vinyl sheet covered drywalls, plastic covered couches, vinyl record player and rubber chicken (what?). Now that is a formula for low cost but dull housing, unless you have all the colours of a rainbow, then we got hideous housing or ginger bread housing. Nobody wants to live in a ginger bread house, but that evil witch. Let’s take a look at something completely different.

Log walls (pine), pine wood shingle roofing, pine wood flooring, pine wood panel ceiling, pine wood panel drywalls, log stairs (pine), log railings (pine), wooden cabinets (pine), wooden doors (pine), wood frame windows (pine)… this isn’t that much different, is it? We got high cost but dull housing solution, but show some paint and rainbow colours you shall have.

That was bit harsh, wasn’t it? It is so easy to go overboard with this log dream that I often have to present some eye opening questions to my customers. If you are thinking to build a log home, no matter what everybody say, you have more options than… wood. One especially bad but common advice is that you can use textiles and other decorative items to make it your own. Please do think about materials first and after that decide on decoration. You’ll thank yourself later.

Brilliant news from Southland Log Homes and DonGardner. Southland is going to start offering floor plans from Donald A. Gardner Architects. The beauty of this alliance comes from combining these two companies’ unique strengths.

Southland’s sales channel has massive reach and they have solid manufacturing, however they have never been the strongest player in custom floor plan log homes, but that’s just the trade-off company has to do with production volumes and time consuming custom floor plans.

Donald A. Gardner delivers floor plans and boy do they have plenty! Company has massive slate of different floor plans and even they might come out as somewhat corporative in their company culture, they sure compensate your trouble with abundant slate of floor plans and good pricing. They do have custom services, but those cost extra.

SOUTHLAND BENEFITS

• Southland doesn’t have to invest heavily on architects, structural designers and floor plan designers.

• Southland gets better slate of floor plans to attract customers from new niches and sales go up (word on the street is that they already have almost overly aggressive sales channel, so watch out when shopping around).

• New floor plans are available almost instantly removing long development plans, making this a swift move over competition.

• Corporate culture in these two companies is very similar and cooperation should be straight forward.

It will be interesting to follow how this affects Southland Log Homes market position. What do you think?

Erlund is a log home manufacturer from Finland. A family company with an interesting enough product to be featured on a fantastic TV-series Grand Designs. Erlund has developed a fascinating panel-insulation-log wall that can keep up with rising European standards for energy efficiency of housing.

HOW TO GET IN
With Erlund House, I chose a fairly simple, classic model named Taru with two entrances, one from the side of the building and one from the terrace end of the log home. Side entrance has been planned as the main entrance so let’s go in through that.

INSIDE
In front of us we have a narrow corridor that curves to the right. No cabinets or space for clothes and outdoors gear. For families with kids, I can imagine this to be congested to the max. Corridor is lined with bedrooms and a bathroom, nothing much to comment but very efficient use of space. All the rooms are simple rectangles so there are no in-built closets.

AT THE END OF THE…
Not rainbow, but corridor and it opens to combined kitchen and living room (named lounge, but in my opinion it’s not lounge quality so I’ll just call it living room). Definitive plus here is that this open area just bathes in sun light thanks to those big windows.

WHAT ELSE?
Somewhat - was that it - experience, but one can’t expect much more from house of this size. Space has been utilized fairly well, even the hall area continues all the way through the house.

However, one thing especially troubles me, the only storage room in the house has entry from kitchen only. Given the severe space limitation, this storage room is bound to turn into utility room. Awkward positioning indeed and hampers the functionality (yes, I’m from Finland and here we are all for functionality) of the floor plan.

SUMMARY
Taru floor plan makes good use of the given floor area. Floor plan is slightly on the dull side, because of straight line designing, which also keeps the floor plan clean and simple.

Storage room area is desperately needed. Bedrooms are not that big and if you have to fill them up with closets, you have very little space left for log home living.

Definite plus in this plan are two toilets and their positioning. One can access them easily. However, in order to free that much needed storage space, I would be willing to give up the toilet or rearrange the workroom and bathroom/wc combo.

Like with any floor plans, one little change here creates many little changes here and there. It is often better to redraw the whole floor plan from the start for best results.

Now to what kind of family would this house be suitable? What do you think about it?

For the longest time I have not displayed any links on this site. I’m going to start doing it again. I’ll only include sites that provide quality information on log homes, log cabins and timber frame homes. The first one that I have decided to include on the list is a personal site of a dedicated family, which is building their dream home in Kentucky.

Log home building stories are usually quite dull (I’m probably alone with this opinion), they follow the same natural storyline:

Which log is the best?
Can you recommend a good manufacturer?
What about land?
Any good contractors?
Hurrah, we are weather-locked!
Decorating!

People need something to be inspired and motivated… people get this from their peers and given the growth of the industry most of us who live in log homes have done it by buying already finished log homes or employed contractor to build one. Isn’t it just natural that we follow people who have gone the beaten track before us?

Massie house blog is something different. The scale of their undertaking is so huge that you can’t get away with it by just working hard. One has to work determined to reach one single goal. Following how they learn as they go is eye opening and I can’t recommend their website enough. ]]> http://www.hirsilinna.com/log-houses/timber-frame-house/feed/ http://www.hirsilinna.com/log-houses/finnlamelli-floor-plan-aapo/ http://www.hirsilinna.com/log-houses/finnlamelli-floor-plan-aapo/#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:57:16 +0000 Jake http://www.hirsilinna.com/?p=532

First floor plan that gets the honor of being reviewed is Finnlamelli’s Aapo. Finnlamelli is less-known custom log home manufacturer from Finland. Excellent product quality and flexible manufacturing and deliveries make this company one of the first choices when you consider buying a log home from Finland. Being so strongly technology oriented log home manufacturer, Finnlamelli’s standard catalog models aren’t stunning architectural thrills, still I found one that I especially like.

COMING HOME
So you come back from work and pick up some groceries on your way. You park into the carport and expect to conveniently get those bags inside. No such luck! There is no access from the carport to wetroom and inside. Luckily overhangs extend far enough to protect you if it’s raining so you get inside without getting wet. There are two independent storage rooms connected to the carport one with optional access to inside the house.

HOME SWEET HOME
Open living room with cathedral ceiling greets you, once you get past the entrance. Statue-like oven is the focal point of living room. Imagine those warm and cozy nights, family getting together and playing board games and fire flickers through glass crate. Door to backyard veranda invites outside to sunshine and to sunset.

KITCHEN
From living room you have an access to almost every room in the house. Kitchen is almost integral part of living room and separated only by cabinets and the decorative partition wall behind them. Large kitchen area, plenty of room for dining table. Is there anything more natural than whole family having dinner together?

BEDROOMS
Three bedrooms make this log home a small family home. All the bedrooms have plenty of storage space, one comes with its own closet. Parents’ room is separated from kids’ rooms by living room, a nice detail that gives some privacy. Unfortunately same cannot be said about toilet, which is directly connected with living room. No matter what, it is always slightly embarrassing to use this kind of toilet when some guests are visiting.

UTILITY
Utility has lots of room for washing and drying machines also cabinet room for linen. This room also has a door to outside, you’ll probably find some kind of rack to hang laundry on. This kind of wetroom/mudroom area is reasonable to marry with bathroom and (as in Finland we are) sauna. Nothing splendid in bathroom, just very efficient, pretty much the same goes with rest of the house.

SUMMARY
This floor plan uses space extremely sparingly, providing good return for your money. Efficiency turns against itself and takes away some points, also carport should be connected with direct access to the house and mudroom. I can warmly recommend this floor plan, but with slight alterations. Luckily the company is up for the challenge since most of their homes are custom made.

Do you want your floor plan reviewed? Just leave a comment, I read them all. ]]> http://www.hirsilinna.com/log-houses/finnlamelli-floor-plan-aapo/feed/ http://www.hirsilinna.com/log-houses/excellent-website-on-building-a-log-home/ http://www.hirsilinna.com/log-houses/excellent-website-on-building-a-log-home/#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:52:15 +0000 Jake http://www.hirsilinna.com/?p=529 Not every day I come across with a website providing such detailed information as Log Building (dot org). Today I did. Robert Chambers is the person behind all the info and I can’t recommend his site highly enough.

Robert focuses on handcrafted, scribe-fitted log building and amassed tremendous amount of expertise in this area. Real gem of info is a spreadsheet he put together to calculate log selection. If you are more learning-by-watching person then you better check videos he has posted. He has filmed quite a sleuth of them and they are scheduled for release.

If you are looking for information on how to build log homes, this is the website to go to. If you need a book about how to build a log home Robert’s book is your resource. Sigh, yet another book on my list, it’s almost like for every book that I read, I get two unread ones. This way it’s going to be a lifetime of reading log home books!