Best way for building small budget home. Kit or conventional?

I think I want 600 square foot upper level and a 600 square foot basement. Stick framing might be the best option.

Bob-Please talk to someone who has built and lived in a log home. My DS&Bl built a kit log home with contractor's help in Vermont. The logs naturally shrink over time so they had to install roof jacks and lower roof each year for the first five years. Whatever they put between the logs to seal wasn't installed properly and it siphoned water between the logs-two years old and the entire thing had to be resealed. Log homes look great but they are not really maintenance free. Good luck.

Building with logs is cheapest, if and only if you get your own logs and put them up yourself, not a so-called log kit. But the learning curve is steep, not impossible, but steep. I know because my wife and I built our own. But it is not quick to build your own, if you don't already have general building and log experience. Your earlier posts made it sound like you were planning on hiring someone to build the completed exterior for you.

This has been the experience of every log home I've known of... Not necessarily the roof issue, but I've even known some that just had to be sided like regular houses because they started gapping and rotting.
I always recommend a LOT of real-world research before jumping in to that kind of expense!

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Erin and Mulemom,

My log house is almost 23 years old and I have not had problems with my walls or chinking. But like I said, the learning curve is steep to get it right.

KMA1