(530) 899-0680Build stories, working answers and plain numbers from Larry Trimboli, who has been designing and milling log and timber homes since 1994. Every article is signed. How these get written →
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Traditional heavy timbers can overwhelm a small building. Sierra Log & Timber engineered a 4x8 Red Incense Cedar timber log as the building block for compact work — the same dual-hewn profile as the flagship 6x10, scaled down, for tiny log homes, backyard studios and premium log cabin kits.
The species Sierra Log & Timber mills is called Red Cedar in the trade and Incense Cedar in the books, and is botanically Libocedrus decurrens, a member of the Cypress family. This is the guide to what that means for wall logs and full-home construction, written by the company that grades it.
The Boma is a design born from over ten years of building log homes for clients in every imaginable climate. Hank's family moved in before it was finished, cooked their first Thanksgiving on camp stoves over plywood sawhorses, and have since used it for reunions, church retreats and hunting season base camp.
The Transformer began with a 24x24 footprint, the most popular garage size on the market, and a glass wall where the garage door would go. To the county it is a permitted primary residence. Years later the glass comes out, a garage door rolls in, and the loft and bathroom stay exactly where they are.
Mark and Sarah wanted a multi-generational guest home that could become a rental, and local zoning clamped down hard on the footprint. Rather than expand outwards, the team engineered a strict 30x40 footprint and reclaimed the dead space over the main floor with attic trusses as a bonus room loft.
Local build caps and small lots make a comfortable multi-bedroom ADU hard to lay out. The ADU750-2ST packs two bedrooms and two full bathrooms into 750 square feet of living space on a 492-square-foot ground-floor footprint, by splitting the layout and putting the second storey inside the roofline.
The traditional path from raw land to a custom log home runs through weeks of architect consultations and a bill for a baseline set of drawings. Sierra Log & Timber built a filterable floor plan database instead: find a layout, tell them about the property, and download a complete scaled study plan for nothing.
Between site excavation, concrete and strict local square-footage caps, expanding a home's footprint outward in California is financially punishing. The SmartBuild Bonus System is a framing approach that unlocks livable space inside the existing roofline instead, out of the dead attic air a standard roof leaves behind.
Sierra Log and Timber has launched an integrated planning platform for landowners and builders. It joins a filterable library of log, timber, cabin and ADU designs, with free scaled study sets delivered digitally, to a beta Sierra Action Planner that organises a custom home project into phases and milestones from feasibility through to handover.
West Coast architectural fees have climbed to the point where standard residential design is cost-prohibitive for middle-class homebuilders. Sierra Log and Timber has answered with a flat-rate custom 3D drafting programme: submit ideas, site parameters or raw sketches, and an in-house team develops a complete customised 3D architectural study set.
In many counties you are not allowed to build a standalone garage without a primary residence already on the property, which stalls owner-builders who want to live on their land while they save. The Transformer is a permitted primary residence on a two-car-garage footprint that converts back into a garage later.
Sierra Log & Timber has launched loghomefloorplans.shop, giving free and unrestricted access to scaled study floor plans through an interface built for the phone. Prospective builders can view, zoom and filter log home, barndominium, cabin and ADU plans from a mobile device without a paywall or an account.
California has loosened its Accessory Dwelling Unit rules since 2020. This guide puts the official HCD ADU Handbook into plain English: what an ADU is, the types, size and lot requirements, setbacks, parking, impact fees, junior ADUs, garage conversions, HOA restrictions, and what local governments cannot restrict.
Hunters and trail riders wanted what The Transformer does for county building departments, with somewhere to put the quad, the side-by-side and the waders. The Quad Cave takes the DNA of that design and evolves it: cabin living and a secure dedicated bay for the toys, on one permitted footprint.
Outdoorsmen kept stopping at the sportsman show booth asking for something compact enough for a backcountry camp and priced to match. The Trapper is the answer: a 4x8 timber log system, a 16x20 footprint with a loft, and an option to build it on heavy-duty skids so an outfitter can drag it where the game moves.
State agencies, county fire safe councils and Resource Conservation Districts fund free roadside chipping, defensible space assessments and forest health grants. The programs are scattered across hundreds of fragmented municipal websites and obscure county portals. Sierra Log & Timber built a free county-by-county directory because stewardship does not start at the mill door.
Sierra Log & Timber has launched a free web-based resource directory for rural and vacant property owners. It consolidates county-level land management tools, fire district initiatives and environmental assistance programs across California, Oregon, Washington and surrounding Western states into one searchable directory, free to use and needing no account.
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