This I Believe, Inc., was founded in 2004 as a not-for-profit organization that engages youth and adults from all walks of life in writing, sharing, and discussing brief essays about the core values that guide their daily lives.

This is my essay, accepted a year ago, “Building My Own Home”

I believe there comes a time to build your own home. For me, that time began three years ago.

As children, the first place we build for ourselves takes the form a backyard snow fort, or a playhouse made from a card table and sheet, or a tree house deep in a secret woods. When I was a young boy, I would often play on a small rug in the basement, pretending to live on a raft like Robinson Caruso or Huck Finn. I loved the idea of living in a small, defined space and floating with the current.

As adults, we strike out to find a starter home. For me, after I floated through a dozen apartments and two houses, I knew it was time for me to build a place of my own.

Building my own home gave me the chance to make my own decisions and make my own mistakes. I chose to fix them or live with them. The inspiration for my own very small, self-built home is based on a photo I saw in a book. I later learned the cabin in the photos is an award winning design by a well-respected architect.

The home I built is a dogtrot; two cabins sharing a single roof that spans an open deck between the cabins. The interior measures less than 700 square feet, plus some sleeping lofts. I know every detail as if it were an extension of my own body. I can find everything in the light or in the dark. I know corners that are not quite square and boards that have warped as they have mellowed. I know the 44-foot deck that bisects the cabins has 2600 screws, each drilled, one by one, on a warm autumn afternoon. That deck, I now see, resembles a raft, floating on the Iowa prairie I call home.

And while there is a cost associated with the building materials, the home is beyond measurable price. I cannot put a monetary value on the exhilaration I felt when I raised the first framed wall. I cannot put a value on the view from the small cabin loft. I cannot put a value on the quiet clear nights as the stars and moon light the two quiet ponds.

As I began my home building project, I was clear about this: my goal was to build a cabin, not to have a cabin. I could have hired a builder to erect it in a matter of weeks. Instead, my work took nearly 3 years and continues as I write this.

I know, beyond self satisfaction, the home I built myself comes with something no other home offers: a lifetime warranty that says, if anything ever goes wrong, the builder will fix it.

Lou posted this Q & A with Mark to his New York Times blog:

Before taking on construction of a timber-frame cabin, he was already a woodworker, building guitars and cabinets. He uses hand tools — planes, saws, chisels.

via Q & A With Mark Van Roojen, a Philosophy Professor and Cabin Builder – Times Topics Blog – NYTimes.com.

Progress in Maine by Lou Ureneck

John Letourneau’s blog at watchthehousegrow shares his  cabin on his rural land in the Catskills.  He writes:

After 20 years of various homes and renovations, it’s time to grow my first one from scratch.

via watchthehousegrow: house from field, vice versa.

If you have ever dreamed of getting away to a contemporary piece of design your moment has arrived. We have worked hard to bring stunning design together with prefab manufacturing techniques that allow you to build a cabin and enjoy it sooner.

• We start with great design and the understanding that people are going to use the cabins we build. A cabin is a sanctuary. The cabin experience is about recreation, and restoration. It should restore, not diminish your sanity.
• We are about building less. Building less means less money, less time, less waste, less stress on you and the environment. Building less means less of everything that doesn’t make you happy.
• We believe in a new approach to design and building a cabin. We utilizes building methods that result in faster construction times, higher quality, and greater affordability.
• We believe in streamlining design and construction in order to make good design by noted designers more accessible. We are building a framework that allows you to build a cabin that reflects a mutual passion for good design by both you us.

Build a Cabin – Prefab Cabins, Plans from Form & Forest | Form & Forest.

Here are three projects I am currently following:

Copyright Marc von Roojen

Mark van Roojen’s Timber Frame cabin (LINK UPDATED)

This is a 2 -3 year project of a University of Nebraska – Lincoln professor of metaethics, ethics and political philosophy. The cabin is located in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Wyoming.

A new project and blog (although it’s Topic at the New York Times, so it’s quasi blog, quasi editorial) is Lou Ureneck’s “From the Ground Up”.

Copyright Lou Ureneck

But the best of the best isn’t one project, but the collection of owner built projects housed at John Raabe’s www.countryplans.com. The discussion board, which is the heart of the site,  contains 74,106 Posts in 5,744 Topics by 3,463 Members as of today, and the number grows.

I first began following the discussion on Country Plans in late 1999 or early 2000, and have been flattered that John choise to include the Two Mile Ranch cabin on his front page, along with some very impressive stories and projects.

This week, the temps will drop with lows in the low 60′s, so I’ll put the final sheathing on the sides and then the roofers will sheath the roof and place the metal.