Why only custom plans ?
Kaila Drafting Design
provides high quality custom home and site design. No plan books. There are enough plan books on the market and no need to produce more. They can provide a good start but most show only one elevation or frontal view and a basic floorplan before you buy the plans. You are betting on someone else's dream matching your own and matching the site. Log homes are usually built on acreage's not city lots. The site is very important in properly designing a home. Custom plans cost more but put you in the picture. Getting your dream home takes teamwork and you should be on the team. Even with options such as renderings, walkthroughs, and flyovers, custom plans will cost less than real estate fees, for a comparison. This would have the plans sealed and appropriate calculations supplied by the engineer. If you wish or authorities request the engineer have site inspections you would have to factor in those costs on top. It is usually best to use a local structural engineer familiar with log and timber frame buildings.
Hand-crafted log construction is as it states a craft. The medium is a work of natural art and makes a healthy living environment. There is no reason a log home should not last at least as long as it takes to grow the trees to replace the ones used in the building. Probably the figure would be more like the trees being replaced 3 to 5 times over. Consider the fact that this will be a residence for many generations to come. Now consider your budget, family needs, climate and the site.This is not an overnight process. Most custom plans take months to complete but this planning stage is vital to getting closest to what you want. Closest means there will probably be compromises and the budget is a real limiting factor. If budget doesn't matter you'll probably get what you want. Think quality because you are thinking long term. If you have to compromise due to budget I believe you should reduce size rather than compromise the quality of construction.
Designs use solids modeled logs in AutoCAD with APDesign for architectural software. Logs naturally taper in hand-crafted log construction and are draw that way. Kaila Drafting & Design is able to produce all necessary working drawings for permits and almost limitless options from building materials to renderings to walk-thrus or fly-overs. Bill of materials can be exported to Timberline Precision Estimator and ISS Construction Manager, Buildsoft and Softsys Estimator Pro.
Building components can be shown separately to any degree necessary to understand or visualize the design.This is a custom design service besides a place to get a set of plans for your building permit. You get experience and technology.You get treated fairly and honestly. Quality of product and service to the client is the goal of Kaila Drafting Design.
Have designed 60 custom log buildings in the last 7 years. Have completed log home designs for Alaska, Alberta, B.C., Manitoba, N.W.T., Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington in North America. Only Japan so far for overseas.
As a hand-crafted log builder I was usually one of a crew of 2 to 4 depending on size of building. I also did all the log work and most of the log peeling on one log home built out of hemlock logs. My guess is I worked on 50 log buildings in the 8 years in the craft. There may be a: "the older I get, the better I was" factor in there but what can I say, I wasn't counting..