FROM THE MILL

How a log cabin actually gets built

Most people picture a cabin going up like a barn raising. Logs arrive. Walls rise in a weekend. That is not how a mill job works.

At TJ's a cabin is a sequence. Wood, then mill, then a kit a builder can stack on a subfloor that is already true. Skip a step and you feel it later in the doors and the first hard winter.

It starts with Colorado wood

The mill sits at 62160 Highway 285 in Bailey. Logs that grew here and dried here behave like Colorado weather: dry air, snow load, sun on a south wall. Home logs get inspected and grade-stamped on site.

Hand-selected, hand-peeled, hand-scribed

A handcrafted wall is a fit. Each log is selected, peeled, and scribed so it sits on the one below it. That is slower than a machine kit with identical courses. It is also why the house does not look like it came off a truck in shrink wrap.

The shop is about 18,000 square feet, with a crane and the crew that does this work. You can read names on the About page. They are the same people you will talk to.

We pre-build, then we take it apart

We stack the log package at the mill so joints can be fitted where the crane already lives. Then the cabin comes down, gets loaded, and goes back up on your subfloor. That is the kit. A house that has already been a house once.

We do not, as a default, build the whole house as one contract. Roof, mechanicals, interior: that is the rest of the job. Talk to the mill if you want a different arrangement.

Walk the yard if you can. Photos lie about diameter. Logs do not. Call (303) 838-5779.