Log Cabins - Second Homes or not

Log cabins make terrific all year round places to live even in the United Kingdom and in fact, they are really small houses but instead of bricks, you have logs! They are built to a very uncomplicated design and can at times be referred to as garden cabins as well as log cabins. Although log houses and log cabins are built from the same materials they do have their differences; log cabins are typically built with round rather than hewn or hand-worked logs where as log houses tend be a one story assembly, with an almost “less finished” appearance (unlike the log cabins) as these were at first built with the intention of being short-term.

Whilst folks think of log cabins, they tend to directly think of rustic and rural North America with their long-established log houses and barns? Anyhow, did you know that log cabins have there roots in Eastern Europe and probably even originated in Scandinavia around the Bronze Age (possibly around about 3500 BC)? They are built by stacking tree trunks one on top of another and then arranging them in such a way as to overlap at the corners and then notch the logs at the ends. Hundreds of years previously the time-honoured design was to incorporate moss and other soft materials into the joints to make them more weather tight and they would even throw over animal skins! However as you would suppose in most parts of the world today especially in the United Kingdom, other, more practical materials other than moss and animal skins are mostly used!

People still like to retain a feel of tradition and surprisingly log cabins are still a common selection of housing in some parts of the UK, Europe and America. They become a fantastic option to the usual style homes that you spot today and are a lot cheaper to build, run and can even seem very good-looking particularly in the colder regions of the north. They can nonetheless be built using logs of varying thickness to add to there attractiveness, plus the thicker logs offer better insulation. You can either purchase ready-constructed cabins or even build your own with a pre-milled log cabin kit if you want, along with the added benefit of being more money efficient.

If you are considering buying a log cabin in the United Kingdom that has been built for you there are a few things that you possibly will want to think about firstly; it may seem clear-cut however you need to make sure that you have sufficient land and measure the whole lot! You will also want to think carefully about its positioning and which direction your log cabin is facing before you build it and you will want to make certain that there is somewhere nearby where you can get hold of services such as a sewer, electricity and water, as you can image these things are awfully important unless you really want to go wild and step back to nature. Once you have found the ideal spot you can very easily purchase log cabin kits on the web, these are becoming more common than purchasing a pre-built log cabin from another owner as you can get it constructed to your own tastes added to that you get the additional pleasure of creating a home all of your own.

Whatever you choose to do you will as a rule have to obtain a building permit of course, which for log cabins ought to be a trouble-free procedure. Still, building permits may differ from county to county.