One of the hardest decisions Greg and I had to make was whether to build a handcrafted log home or a manufactured log cabin kit. 

If we waited another 3-4 years, we would have the money to build the custom log home -- which is generally more expensive.  But ultimately, our need to have our log home dream now and the discovery of the affordability and flexibility of the log cabin kit sealed our fate.

Deborah recently asked this:

im looking for a basic instruction on how to build with linear ft logs (machine logs) do you have or know of where i might buy a booklet of some kind? thank you -- deborah

My reply below...

Below, our beloved Fun Times Guide guest reporter, Joe, shares with us a few more practical tips for buying or building a log home.

In this installment, he offers some recommendations to help you decide between one log home company and another.

We've been working with Honest Abe Log Homes for well over a year now.

At first, we just had a lot of questions about log homes in general, and the sales rep at the Murfreesboro office (Tonya Hallman) always had the answers. She really helped us by pointing us in the right direction.

Once we were determined that our next home would be a log home, we did a lot of research and we met with a handful of log home companies. The closest runner-up in our search for a log home builder was Southland Log Homes.

I am thrilled to announced that we have officially hired a G.C. to oversee our project from start to finish!

And we couldn't be happier with our decision.

...It's been a long time coming.

Building a log home can be the ultimate DIY dream -- if you've got what it takes.

Sure, we thought about building our log home ourselves.
...for about a minute!

See why we chose to have a G.C. oversee the building of our new log home, rather than doing it ourselves.

Now through the end of 2007, Canada's leading log home builder, Pioneer Log Homes, is giving away a FREE Jeep Wrangler Unlimited with the purchase of "The Anchorage" style log home!

This is part of Pioneer's effort to branch out into the UK.