Life’s Next Chapter, Built in Beautiful Red Cedar.

Total turn-key construction typically ranges from $200 to $700 plus per square foot, with West Coast & high end builds reliably trending toward the top of that range. Because final pricing is set by your local builder and subcontractors, our home package represents just one portion of the overall budget. In our experience, costs vary based on four main factors: your building strategy (owner-builder vs. general contractor), geographic location, design complexity, and terrain (your site). While we don’t set final construction costs, we can help guide you through these variables using our 10-phase Action Planner and INSIGHT (market to budget research tool) so you can approach local builders with confidence.

Sierra supplies the upper structural shell and millwork… every project is different and every log package's components are different: log walls, gables, roof and floor log components, deck structural systems, railings, stairs, siding, window and door bucks, trim, and assembly hardware. Your local general contractor provides site excavation, the concrete foundation, platform framing lumber, window glass, exterior passage doors, roofing materials, and mechanicals… and everything else to finish the home.

Our Smart Cut™ is fast and efficient, not to mention producing beautiful log walls with limited butt joints. A traditional precut kit relies on rigid factory cuts that leave no room for job-site realities. The Smart Cut™ pairs detailed panel layout drawings with wall logs smart-labeled for length and notch placement. Your builder gets factory accuracy, speed of build and the ability to adapt on site, which is what every real builder needs. (read the SMART CUT ADVANTAGE document to fully understand its features and benefits)

Both. Our floor plans are starting points for a conversation. You can select a layout from the database, modify a plan to fit your site’s slope and views, or work with our in-house design team on a fully custom plan. The land and the way you live come first. The plan follows.

The Design Package is a low-risk way to start. You work with our design team on your layout, we model your home in 3D on your actual terrain, and you get elevations, many concept images and revisions, and a final study set. Done until it is done. The $950 fee is credited in full against your engineered plans when you move forward.

Red Cedar (Incense Cedar – see the cedar blog for full species explanation) offers superior natural resistance to decay, insects, and thermal loss. Our Cedar logs are all TPI structurally graded to match the engineering on the plans. Our experience with this Red Cedar yields minimal warping, checking or settling. The main benefit is extreme beauty due to its color marbling and home value. Our standard hand peeled or hand hewn surface adds to this beauty giving you the most beautiful natural appearance a log can have. There is nothing like the “bragging rights” of owning a Cedar home!

This is very personal. Log homes are a “passionate build” and because of that, a person is very polarized about the look… so we do them all. Round logs give an authentic, cozy, rustic alpine feel with deep shifting shadow lines. Timber logs give a bold, structured, old world presence with clean lines and open volumes. D-logs can be the “compromise” of a couple with profile demands that are not the same. With a classic rounded exterior paired with a smooth, flat interior wall, maybe the reason a D log is the most popular style in the country. They are all beautiful…!

This is very open ended due to a lot of factors: terrain, design and complexity and the state you are building in. So on a fast track, you can design and build within 6 months if you are not in California or states like this that have heavy permit processes. California and other heavy permit states take approx. 4-6 months to design, engineer and get a permit (and sometimes longer due to the permit process). Once that is done, the average length of time of the build is 6-12 months depending on the builder, the location and the design complexity. Yes it can take longer than that in heavy snow areas and/or areas with really extreme land developments that have to take place to build. Of course, an owner builder can take forever to build any home. Outside of California is approximately the same for building but much faster for the design to permit process.

Yes & No. It's best that your builder has log building experience. A rookie builder may bid it wrong (too high or low, usually too low). Most of our projects can carry some wall building support of our rep going out to the job site teach the log build… but there is a lot more than walls to a log build. Our Smart Cut™ helps a lot at the wall level. But as you get up into the roof system and covered deck systems, it always takes some experience knowing how to deal with round logs or big timbers. Yes owner builder can build these… it just is a slower process for them… but we try to support as much as we can! My advice, find a seasoned log stacking crew or a general contractor with log building experience.

Request a free Scaled Study Set. It is a dimensioned ¼" = 1' set for any of our plans. You and your general contractor can review real layout dimensions. This document is very useful to do a lot of planning elements needed. (see the use cases for this document)