The Owner-Built Log House: Living in Harmony With Your Environment [Paperback]

Most library users are interested in homes using traditional construction methods, but comprehensive collections should offer information about alternative technologies. These three titles offer good options. Pearson offers instructions to build yurts, tipis, and benders all dwellings that consist of a collapsible, lightweight frame covered with cloth. Examples range from simple, temporary designs to much sturdier structures appropriate for year-round use. The examples are from all over the world, but brief instructions allow anyone to build a rather exotic structure inexpensively. The Sanchezes provide a wealth of information about the history and techniques associated with the use of adobe, an ancient material common in the Southwest. Twelve plans for both traditional and modern homes are included some of which look surprisingly conventional to the casual observer. This title will be of particular interest to readers in the more arid regions of North America. Mackie, a well-known author and educator of log home-building techniques, shows how to construct a log home in a low-impact, environmentally friendly manner. The homes shown are beautiful, with a great deal of exposed joinery; Mackie's step-by-step instructions and excellent illustrations show how everything is done (the author, who is in his mid-seventies, is still building homes a feat that many half his age would find taxing). These titles are recommended for comprehensive collections or for those with a regional interest in the particular technology covered.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A good read for those planning to venture into the log home-building process, Mackie's wry prose takes the reader step-by-step through the entire process, aided by hundreds of full-colour photographs and detailed diagrams and drawings. Based on Mackie's experience in creating Ardea, his log house on Shanty Lake, this new edition includes a chapter that covers the building and finishing of two additional log houses, which were only in the planning stage when the original book was published. The book is a testament to Mackie's most treasured desire -- to reproduce the life and style of the pioneers. Regardless of what stage you find yourself today, dreaming, planning, building or living in your log home, and it doesn't matter if you plan to build a handcrafted or milled home, this new book belongs in your library. It is an educational, fun and inspirational book about log homes that I believe you will thoroughly enjoy. [Review of previous edition:] The homes shown are beautiful, with a great deal of exposed joinery; Mackie's step-by-step instructions and excellent illustrations show how everything is done. [Review of earlier edition:] One of a '10 Essential Books for Every Log Home Owner' in their 10th Anniversary Issue.

[Review of earlier edition:] Allan Mackie, who has been building log homes with his own hands for decades, offers a literary gift to those who entertain the idea of building [a log cabin] the old-fashioned way.... The prose is as clear as Yosemite's sky at dawn, and illustrations and photos provide plenty of guidance when you're up to your elbows in timber. Mackie doesn't mince words, and he doesn't glorify the process -- but he does impart the satisfaction of building something extraordinary. (Michael McCarthy Log Home Living 2008)

[Review of earlier edition:] These two books are going to be nirvana for anyone who wants to learn how to build one step by step and knows this information has come from decades of hands-on practice.

[Review of earlier edition:] This book is nirvana for anyone who wants to learn how to build a log house step by step and knows this information has come from decades of hands-on experience. [Review of earlier edition:] This book is nirvana for anyone who wants to learn how to build a log house step by step and knows this information has come from decades of hands-on experience. (Rob Hadden The Owner Builder 2009)