Follow the guidelines in The Owner-Builder Book. I recommend it to lots of people. Jedda in Brighton. ON

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Introduction

Posted to Forrest-Towne by Forrest in Brinnon, WA on 3/10/2007

So let's start at the beginning.

A little over two years ago, I had a heart attack. It was the morning of Thanksgiving and I was 47 years old. Well my wife decided we should sell our current two-story house and move into a single story. I started fixing up the house with a significant amount of help from my father. About this time I brought up the idea of building a log house. My wife decided that would be great.

I started looking for a larger parcel in the local area. They were few and far between. Most of the smaller ones were largely wetlands. The larger ones were mostly forest land. We quickly discovered that those that were decent went quickly. Prices for 20 acres were running about $200,000.

It took longer than anticipated, but we got the house ready and on the market. We went three months with very few visitors and no offers on our house. Then we found a 20-acre parcel that was forest land that had been cleared about 15 years ago. It had an excellent view of the mountains, with a river just yards away that had a peek-a-boo view. It is so quiet you can hear the river and every star is visible at night. Much different from the big city where we live. Problem was it was a 42-mile drive. But we made the big jump and put down earnest money.

We had to make the sale contingent on the sale of our house, and it wasn't selling. We lowered the price and had two visitors that month. We lowered it again and within a week we got two offers in one day. What a drag - one was extremely low and the other was low and wanted us to help pay closing costs. We accepted the latter of the two with it contingent on the sale of their current home. Within a couple of days we had another offer for almost full price. To make the story shorter, the second offer fell through and we were able to accept the third one. By the end of 2006, it was sold and we closed on the land the 2nd of January.

Photos

Taking possesion

Posted to Forrest-Towne by Forrest in Brinnon, WA on 3/10/2007

Here is a first look when we arrived after purchasing a 20-acre parcel on the side of a mountain.

Photos