Building Our Own Home the Hard Way (with Five Beer Drinkers)

This book Building Our Own Home the Hard Way (With Five Beer Drinkers) is one of a thousand projects I designed and/or built in my 57 years as a designer/builder, professional project manager, and general superintendent. My first wife and I saved up enough money to build our retirement home in a Canadian resort in British Columbia. The only way we could build the house we wanted was to gather leftover materials from my large projects in Vancouver and Whistler. These included high rises and a timeshare hotel. I worked every weekend, vacation, and holiday, spending approximately 4,000 hours on that house. I called in my local crew as necessary -my five beer drinkers - as I needed them, which happened when there was a lot of heavy lifting, and since the house had over one hundred logs in it and I was using a chainsaw, I always had someone there for safety. The book's pictures show the progress during the five years the project took from start to finish. Then something happens at the end of the book that takes everyone by surprise. Building Our Own Home the Hard Way was not easy! An amateur photographer since high school, Douglas Robert Denison illustrates the stages of his retirement home with numerous photos. Born 72 years ago in Portland, Oregon, he has contracted mostly in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. He was in the carpenter's union, was a logger, and had three of his own custom home construction companies that built 104 large custom homes. He designed and built six ...