Yeah, I wasn’t suggesting you need to worry about “sqeal like a pig” problems; but locals, that is - anyone with a pickup truck within 100 miles - knows there is unattended stuff just waiting to be taken and used or simply smashed if they are bored.
Minnesotans are polite, they will leave a thank you note.
Zjestika, ignore all of these horror stories. Very few houses cost more than 3 times the initial estimate, or took more than 4 times the predicted amount of time to build. Nothing could go wrong. :rolleyes::dubious:
What about strawbale construction? You might find that better than logs, and they are wonderful homes(at least the ones I have been in). A good deal of the labor can be Do-It-Yourself.
The other problem might be transport. There’s a reason why 2x4 or 2x6 construction is convenient. You can haul a decent amount of supplies to get the frame up with a pickup and/or utility trailer. Also - a lot of places (if they are like Canada) sell “garage packages”. All the material to put up a framed building about, say, 16’ x 22’ including walls, trusses, sheet covering, usually shingles. You can modify the basic shape to include more windows, and maybe turn the 2-car door area in a bay window. Buy windows “off the shelf” and they are pretty cheap all things onsidered, you can frame the building during construction to hold the size you selected. Insulate, frame interior “rooms”, etc. after the shell is up. It will give you something to do the first year or five. Usually these packages are designed to fit onto a concrete pad the size of the exterior.
At least, that will giev you a rough idea what a basic building will cost.
Owner-builder basic advice:
-
if you have very little experience, ANYTHING you build will be a big and laborious adventure. Choosing any “alternative” like straw bale is going to increase the size of the adventure and labor substantially, and is also going to decrease the amount of knowledgeable help available to an even greater degree. In your position, you really don’t want to encounter blank stares from the lumber store guy, the electrician, the plumber, and most of all, the building inspector. There are very good reasons why stick framing with plywood sheathing is so popular. Think twice about using anything other than techniques and materials that your local construction community is familiar with.
-
If you are thinking of going with a kit, do a lot of research about that company first. What are other new builders’ experiences like, and how much support does the co. give? I’ve heard plenty of depressing stories about kits.
ps: vandalism is a big issue. Leaving a site unattended for even one day is risky.
Ok, I’m beginning to realize that building is much more of an undertaking than Im comfortable with. We’ve expanded our search to acerage with buildings already there. It’s still mostly a dream, though.
However, damn, cabins are cheap if there in nowheresville and not on a lake. There’s one 2 hours from the twin cities in NW Wisconsin, 8 acres, 4 bedroom hunting cabin… $30K.
We had a trailer (mobile home) at our lake property. Bought it used and had it moved & set up down there. Eventually we built a front porch onto it. We had a well drilled and septic installed.
Thats about the cheapest way to go. Check zoning laws first. Some places won’t allow trailers.
Break ins are a concern at any remote property.
The best you can do is to limit whats there to take. Furnish with old, cast off furniture. Minimal pots, dishes and plastic glasses. Never leave guns in a cabin. We even took our Evinrude outboard motor back and forth to the lake. We did leave our jon boat chained to a tree.
Here are some rather haphazard and somewhat random recollections of a cabin my family once owned in the north woods of Minnesota. I didn’t do much correcting or editing of this–it’s all rather stream-of-conciseness… please forgive my typos, errors, and wordiness. 
Building A Cabin
My family owned a cabin in northern Minnesota, about 40 miles north of Duluth, for 30-some years. We just sold it a couple years ago to help pay for my mother’s care.
We had it built in 1975 by a couple local contractors. If I remember correctly it cost about 2500 to build (supplies and labor, in 1975 ). Those guys erected the frame and put some clad-wood (particle board-like stuff) on the outside of it. The whole thing sat atop concrete block “pillars” so it had a crawlspace underneath. It had a nice porch and 3 big picture windows–all facing the little lake about 30 feet downhill. The woods surrounding it were full of pine, birch, and aspens.
Our intention was always to gradually add more amenities as we could afford them. For instance, we had spaces set aside to be a kitchen and a bathroom but we were never able to install the plumbing or the septic tank. We did finally get electrical wiring put in but we never hooked it up to the power lines because our neighbor wouldn’t let us run off their spur and it cost an arm and a leg to get a line brought in from the county road.
Cabin Camping
We called it “cabin camping” because we never got beyond using a Coleman lantern and an ice chest, along with a Coleman stove and a Weber grill outside. At one point we finally put in a well. We didn’t drill it per se but rather pounded down piping with a “point” on the end. We hit water at about 30 feet. It was the tastiest, coldest stuff! But when we had the mandatory impurities test done by the county there was some microscopic trace of some mildly bothersome organism and we never did get to use the well-water. We had to fetch water in 5 gallon jugs from a neighbor.
We had an outhouse (dubbed “The Gopher Hole”) and hauled our garbage to a dump a mile away. We sometimes had to keep our garbage cans hanging from trees to keep the bears out of it. It was exciting, but kinda scary at the time, having bears come by every now and again. We sometimes heard wolves calling in the distance but never saw any. Plenty of Canada geese, loons, and other water fowl, as well as a myriad of other birds.
The stars were amazing. I remember nights of incredible sky-shows where you could see the Milky Way, hundreds of shooting stars, and the Northern Lights–all at the same time. The mosquitoes were often thicker than the stars.
A big part of the reason we never fully improved the place was because we lived 700 miles away and as time went on, we were less and less able to get the time to go up there. Well, there was the money thing too.
But simply roughing it and “camping” in our cabin was a lovely retreat from civilization. I sort of resented the lack of facilities at the time, but in retrospect, it was very charming and probably a lot nicer the way we had it.
On Hooligans and Gun Rights
I think the main reason I’m writing all of this is to touch on the “wandering havoc-wreakers” issue. We never had any problems with anyone–not when we were there and not when we were away for most of the year. But, the situation of being away from police and many other people did lead me to think about getting a firearm to protect the place.
No one in my family has ever owned a firearm and I never really brought this up with anyone else. We were all from a big city and things are different there but this seemed like a situation the called for having firearms around.
Point is–I had never thought about “right to bear arms” issues in this light before. I think this was the basis of my changing my position on gun rights from outright banning of handguns (when I was a lot younger) to a position far more sympathetic to gun owners.
Do a google image search for “park model cabin” a lot of those are under 50g’s. You could have a contractor give you an estimate for building just a pad with water and sewer hookups.
One question to ask is “How can you legally build a log cabin?” Building regs. here would make building such impermissible.
You seem to be in Honolulu. Why wouldn’t they allow a log cabin?
Reading the OP, am I the only person amazed that in this economy, raw land in that area of Minnesota is $3-5K/acre?
There’s quite a variation depending on the property. Here’s a listing for 80 acres for $45,000. Road access, water access, etc. makes a huge difference.
I grew up in the area the OP is looking at. There are a huuuuuge amount of properties in foreclosure in Cambridge/Princeton/Pine City area. It’d be worth checking out the foreclosure listing for Isanti County and surrounding counties. There’s some ridiculous stuff out there- 3 bedroom house, 5 acres, private lake/pond for ~$125,000, etc.
Not enough logs on the island?
My first $3500 would be for a used but sound Airstream trailer. Go live on the property or near it before you buy it. See how much you’re actually prepared to put up with or do without. If you decide to buy the land, you can live in the trailer while building. If you change your mind, you can resell the trailer and the land. You will never resell a half-built cabin.
The OP might look into Yurts.
http://sicarius.typepad.com/althouse/2009/05/cost-of-yurt-homes.html
Really excellent advice.