Planning and designing your first custom log home is a big step. There are many decisions to make and it can come as a shock. However, not being diligent in thinking through all the decisions, in the initial planning stages, can mean mistakes, time wasted and a major investment in something that you end up not being happy with.

To that end, Streamline Log Home Designs wanted to put together some thoughts and tips on things to think about as you begin the process of planning your log home design. Whether it’s a little cabin by the lake or your dream log home, these tips and suggestions, ranging from your log home design to selecting a builder for your custom log home, can help you feel better prepared for that initial meeting with your designer.
In this first of three posts, we will focus on the planning process and some things to think about as you begin to plan your custom log house. While it is not a comprehensive list of things to think about, it will be a good starting point as you begin to consider what you need to think about before meeting with Streamline Log Home Designs.

Part 1: Planning Your Custom Log Home
First of all, one of the most important aspects of planning is to design your custom log home for the budget you have. If you are looking at building a larger log home but are working on a limited budget, you may want to consider a hybrid style log home design, which combines a log home look and feel with the framing techniques found in the more traditionally built homes. This can lower the cost of building a timber and log home and give your designer or architect more options on how the home will be finished.
Look at other already completed log home design and log home plans to compare different techniques and ideas to incorporate in your log home design and log home plans. Some great resources for this are magazines, which are easily found at most hardware store, and the internet. You can have a look through our gallery for inspiration as well.
As you begin imagining your log home or other log home structure, sit down with your log home plans and create a list of the spaces you need in your new home and the function of those spaces. Don’t limit your list at this point. Your goal is to document all your wishes as you build your log home plans. Begin to sketch out preliminary log home design for your home. Your log home plans don’t have to be a fancy design sketch or even to scale. In fact, think about constructing your sketch as a series of bubbles or circles representing the different areas of your home. The first step may be to divide your list of rooms and spaces into three zones: living, working and sleeping. Where the bubbles are placed in relation to each other will guide your first floor plan sketches and help build out the first ideas of the layout of your building.
These rough sketches, photos, magazine tear-outs, etc that you have sketched out and gathered can help give your designer, at Streamline Log Home Designs, a good starting place in beginning to lay out your needs in the initial building plan.
Remember, your design needs to reflect your present living requirements plus your perceived future demands. For example, if this is to be your home for the foreseeable future and you are planning on continuing to build your family, you may need to think about planning for a slightly larger structure. On the other hand, if you are looking to downsize in the future as your family begins entering into a new phase in their lives, you want to make sure that you are taking that into account.
To help you with these beginnings thoughts and plans, Streamline Log Home Designs has put together a comprehensive form that takes you through some of the basic planning questions to think about. Going through this and writing out your thoughts can help organize your thoughts and give your designer a good starting point. You can get the form by contacting Streamline Log Home Designs at info@streamlinedesign.ca.
Planning your custom log home can be an exciting and thrilling process and there are many things you can do before sitting down with our Streamline Log Home designers to make the log home design process more efficient and productive.
Our next post will focus on how to budget for your custom log home. We’ll discuss some of the things to think about as you begin estimating what you are going to need to put aside to build your custom log home.