Articles By:

Lynnette Walczak

We've gone through the entire process of designing and planning every single detail of our dream log home! We have the blueprints... and the land... and the contractor... and the goal for our log cabin home to be our retirement home. Before you build (or buy) a log home, I have a slew of helpful tips for you -- to plan, design, build, decorate, and maintain your very own rustic modern log home. When I'm not fine-tuning the log home of my dreams, you'll find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites). To date, I’ve written nearly 300 articles for current and future log home owners on this site! Many of them have over 50K shares.

How To Track Your Expenses & Plan A Budget

After Jim dismissed the old-fashioned 'manual' way of creating a budget -- by writing figures on forms -- I went on the hunt for something along the lines of an Excel spreadsheet that could be used to track quotes, estimates, expenses and bids from contractors. I found it!

Budgeting The Details Of Your New Home

If there's one thing we've learned about building & financing a log home... it's the fact that it gets a little scary when you start to consider all of the 'unknowns'. This might help...

Log Home Lenders… A Few Things We Learned

We learned quickly that getting a loan for a log home is quite different than getting a loan for a traditional 'stick-built' home. Odds are, even if you qualify for a traditional home mortgage, you might not qualify right away for a loan to build a log home. When we were trying to obtain a loan to build our log home, these are the banks and mortgage lenders that we personally approached for a construction loan, and highlights from our experiences with each of them.

How To Calculate Sizes & Spaces When Estimating Building & Remodeling Costs

Sometimes you need to know what the total area is -- in contractor's terms -- before you can estimate the cost of a project. This is easy to do...

Mother Nature: A Log Home’s Best Friend & Worst Enemy

I would venture to guess that those who buy (or build) log homes are typically people who have a greater appreciation for -- and involvement with -- the outdoors. There's just something about a rustic cabin-type abode that appeals to outdoorsy people. But did you ever stop to think that Mother Nature is both a log home owner's friend... and enemy?