Log cabin interior walls come in more varieties than many home buyers expect, from looking like actual log walls to having typical drywall on the inside with the logs visible on the home's exterior. When home buyers consult with your construction company about building a cabin, they may have preconceived notions about what the interior is supposed to look like. When they find out there are more options, they may look to you for advice on how each might affect them. Be sure to let them know that the difference in the amount of materials needed and the work to create the interior will affect their final price.
Solid Log Walls and Insulation
Remind them that solid log walls have pretty good inherent insulation. Logs that are properly caulked and sealed tend to create a well-insulated structure, but over time the caulking will need to be redone, gaskets replaced, and even windows and doors resealed or replaced. This is typical maintenance for a solid log home but does require more materials as the house ages, and it's not really a job for the homeowner; it needs to be done by a construction company to ensure all spots are taken care of and nothing is missed.
If You Want to Paint the Interior
Home buyers who decide they want a log cabin sometimes still want an interior that is more like a conventional house than a log cabin. This means using exterior logs that are flatter on one side, which will rest up against more traditional insulation pads and then some sort of siding on the interior of the home. This allows the homeowner to paint the walls and hang things like shelves and pictures as they would in a more traditional home, without having any extra spaces lurking behind those pictures or worrying about a middle shelf sticking out a little more due to its placement on a separate log. At first this seems like something that would require more materials up front during the initial construction with no other materials needed later on, but the exterior log layer will still need occasional recaulking, and the insulation will need to be replaced over time.
Visuals Work Well
You may need to create physical models of wall cross-sections that you can show a home buyer so they have a better idea of how many log home materials are needed for each option. When they can actually see everything that goes into building a log cabin wall that has a more conventional, flat interior, that makes it clear just how much more work that type of log home can be and how many more materials are necessary.
Log homes can be constructed piece by piece or from a kit, which may knock the overall price down for larger homes or ones that the buyers have decided will have more traditional interiors. Help the buyer create temporary budgets, too, as seeing the numbers in writing will also help them make a decision.
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