Would you consider buying a cordwood home? I have known of several dozen cordwood homes that have “come on the market” in the past ten years. What would encourage you to buy? What would be a deal breaker? Here is a home in British Columbia that came for sale and the asking price was under half a million dollars. 
With half an acre, 1800 sq. ft. and western red cedar as the cordwood infill, this beauty sold as soon as it hit the market. 
Lots of wood, but oh, so well done. Personally, I love a wood ceiling. 
Well placed cordwood log ends, with clean mortar joints, make for very attractive, complimentary walls. 
The specific features: 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms, timber frame & cordwood; vaulted ceilings, a large open kitchen, a bright Sunroom & a cozy fireplace. The kitchen is large & open with an eating area. The roof was replaced a few years ago with light weight metal.
Most cordwood homes that do sell quickly sell because of the attention to detail and the quality of the build. The doors, windows, posts, roof, mortar, cabinets, closets, interior fixtures all play an important role in the attractiveness of the home.
This cordwood home sold very quickly.
Should you wish to learn how to build a cordwood cottage, cabin or home, please visit www.cordwoodconstruction.org While you are there, click on the pictures, read the brief articles, check out the latest workshops and newsletter and if you are interested click on the Online Bookstore to see all the cordwood literature available in print and ebook format.
If you have questions that aren’t answered on the website you can email me at richardflatau@gmail.com
Readers have requested a brief bio, so here goes:
“Richard & Becky Flatau built their mortgage-free cordwood home in 1979 in Merrill, Wisconsin. Since then, they have written books, conducted workshops, facilitated 2005, 2011 and 2015 Cordwood Conferences and provided consultation for cordwood builders. Cordwood Workshop DVD, Cordwood Construction Best Practices (print) and Cordwood Conference Papers 2015, Cordwood House Plans & Cordwood Shed Plans are the newest publications available from their ever-expanding online cordwood bookstore.” www.cordwoodconstruction.org
Click on the picture to access the ordering information. The DVD is an incredible bargain at $25 and the DVD is available for an immediate download!
Sam Felt and Bill talking about cordwood building in the center part of the home’s inner circle. This is a very beautiful and dramatic building. The arches were 1″ dimensional lumber, bent to make a frame and then pulled off once the mortar hardened. 
Sam Felt’s home in Adel, Georgia. It is made of cypress and has arched doorways created by the Godfather of Cordwood, Jack Henstridge.
Above is Renyard’s cypress cordwood home in Adel, Georgia. 
Tom and Ann’s post and beam framed beauty, in Rockmart, Georgia. This one has a large stone fireplace and is built on an older stone barn foundation. It has the wrap around porch that makes for good neighborly living. 
Maria & Toby built this masterpiece in the mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. It is a 12 sided, post framed cordwood with a living roof. 
The beams make a handy place to dry the garden produce.
Spartanburg, South Carolina is graced with this post framed cordwood with a full walk-out basement. The interior is also very attractive. This home sold, when the family moved to Colorado, to the first person who looked at it (for the asking price!) The real estate agent said it was because of the quality of the build. 
(Below) Kimberly built this 600 square foot cabin in western South Carolina for $6,000. The majority of the materials came from the property.
Wilburton, Oklahoma is so hot in the summer, that it’s hard to do heavy physical labor in the heat of the noonday sun. This was built by a veteran on a military reserve and sold quickly when he moved to Hawaii to be with his grandchildren. It is made of Eastern Red Cedar. 
Suffice it is to say that if a rot-resistant wood is used, along with a slow setting mortar, within a post and beam framework, cordwood can be successfully built in many climates.
Known as “stovewood” or “stackwall” there is a Stovewood home and chicken coop at Old World Wisconsin. It’s purpose is to preserve the history of cordwood in the Badger State.
The interior shelving shows off some of the “finds.”
These buildings house classrooms, kitchens and dormitories that serve the middle school girls from the area. The girls are able to continue their education and learn skills that are income producing. Many volunteers and organizations have helped in the support and construction of this wonderful community. Rob & Tara Cahill are the Directors.
The shingles are recycled tires and are donated by a Canadian shingle company. They are guaranteed to last for 100 years. Comforting thought in the rain forest!
The Quetzal’s have high stone foundations to funnel the ever present rainwater away from the buildings.
The community grows traditional fruits and vegetables (local squash is pictured above) and has an industrial kitchen to make jams, jellies and salsas to sell on the world market.
The beautiful windows are handmade by local artisans.
Students learn valuable skills that help them with high school and employability.
Elvira, a graduate of the Cloud Forest Conservatory, is teaching plant identification and their uses to a group of visiting students. There is also an ornithology program run by Cornell University. Many unique species of birds and plants are to be found in the adjacent rain forest.
Young students were taught masonry skills to erect the buildings. 
The front porch is a valuable and beautiful teaching space.
Cleaning logs for the cordwood infill.
The interior shows off Don’s Brilliant Bottles invention (which light up at night) and its curved walls.
Plowing snow is easier with a straight line.
Octagon with a “square” back room. Rainless’ B and B in the Adirondacks.
Post framed, curved front with a rectangle on the back, a masonry heater and two stories high by Sebastien Demers. 
A 3D model with a round front and a rectangle on the backside by Sebastien Demers of Quebec.
This beautiful round cordwood guest cottage, by Bruce Kilgore and Nancy Dow has a post and beam framework hidden in the middle to support the roof. 
The Cordwood Lodge in Bracebridge, Ontario. 
The Cordwood Education Center at the Merrill School Forest near Merrill, Wisconsin is open to the public. Maps are provided at the entrance 
Kinstone Academy is open to the public for self guided tours. There are three cordwood buildings, a yurt, a sauna, a tepee and a light straw clay cottage. 
The Mermaid Cottage near Del Norte, Colorado is not necessarily a B & B (no breakfast:0), but it is a gorgeous vacation rental. 
The “Cordstead” boasts 4 round cordwood buildings. The concept is to give you a “cordwood living” experience to see if a cordwood home is your cup of tea. Sandy and Angelika are the finest of hosts. 
The Barna’s Vacation Rental is in Houghton, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. Nicole built this as her college dorm room and now rents it to weary travelers. 
This beautiful cordwood rental by Rainlee is in the White Face Mountains of upstate New York. 
The cordwood sauna (above) at the Kinstone Permaculture Academy is also available for rent and so are the yurt, the teepee and the straw-clay cottage (below). 
The Cordwood Education Center at the Merrill School Forest in Merrill, Wisconsin USA is also for rent. You can contact the Merrill School District for more information at 
Note the pitchfork and saw embedded in the mortar.
Looking toward the lake. Nice view!
Folks attended from all over the country, but the majority were cheeseheads (aka Wisconsinites). 
Smiles, laughter and learning were the order of the day. 
As you can see, a good time was had by all.
The garage (aka Carriage House) has a room-in-the-attic truss. It allows for a 400 sq. ft. living space in the attic. Water was plumbed into the upstairs, as well as electricity. The roof pitch is 8/12. 
The stackwall corner posts are built at the same time as the post and beam framework. Then the roof is applied and braced. Finally the cordwood infill. 
The stackwall corners are a old fashioned way to build with cordwood, but the owner learned a new way to make them so they functioned as a post and allowed the roof to be put on ahead of time. 
This is the lake home that was built next to the Carriage House in central Minnesota. 
The building inspector/code official requested that pressure treated lumber be used on the exterior framing. 150 year old barn timbers from Janesville, Wisconsin were used for the interior. 
An enamel Vermont Casting wood stove provides heat. (Below)Another look at the framing, the timbers and the stackwall corners. The lake is in the background. 
(Below) Matt & Carrie built a similar room-in-the-attic two and a half car garage in Wisconsin. They are very pleased with the upstairs living space. Carrie is an architect, so she had a leg up with exterior and interior design. 
Should you wish to learn how to build a cordwood cottage, cabin or home, please visit 
30′ x 40′ Post and beam framed with Northern White Cedar on a frosty November morning. 
We capped it with a truss room-in-the-attic (a Swiss Chalet style roof). It gave us an additional 560 sq. ft. of living space (two large bedrooms and a half bath). 
Interior walls and ceilings are made from locally milled Norwegian Pine (also called Red Pine). In a nutshell, our cordwood home is doing just fine. The mortar is in good shape, there is no degradation of the wood and our home is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Who could ask for anything more?
At 720 pounds, the Hearthstone Wood Stove supplies all the heat we need. Having a large thermal mass, a passive solar design and an attached solar/greenhouse room helps to moderate the interior heating and cooling. 
The photo above was taken when the Mother Earth News sent a photographer from New York to document the Mortgage Free Cordwood Article we had written in 1980. 
The always reliant Yellow Transparent apple tree provides fragrant blooms every spring. Note the domestic hot water solar thermal panels on the roof.
The Home Comfort wood cookstove is used many times a year, but especially around the holidays. 
Many articles have been published about our little cabin in the woods over the past four decades, here are links to the last and the first.
![Leftover Log Ends [Cordwood]](https://cordwoodconstruction.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/bird-feeder.jpg?w=200&h=200&crop=1)
Cordwood Construction ™ 