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Show Index Business Classified Home Living No. 14 Serving 3 ,500 Families From Roy Through Centerville 1 - l.;V: ISfif . 1 School Sports 1 - B- IB 2B Obituaries Vol. HA 14 .5. IB 9li Friday, November 28, 1980 Patience Needed But These Families Will Own the Homes By JIM SAWDEY i Staff Writer ' Its 2:45 Saturday morning. Dimond Loosli awakes. In 15 minutes he will be in his truck heading for a lumber mill near Flaming Gorge. If he leaves by 3 a.m. he will be there, by daybreak. He will need all day to mill logs. For the past three years Loosli has had a lot of practice milling logs. Logs he helped cut down and haul out of the mountains on a trailer he built from the undercarriage of a trailer home his family now lives in. The logs will become part of the third home Dimond and Linda Loosli, Homer and Bonnie Hall, and other neighbors are building for each other. It is a lot of hard work milling logs 10 inches in diameter down to seven inches, Dimond said. They need to be straight and true for the next home he and his neighbors are building. It took 700 logs to build Looslis home. The Halls used 900 logs. The next home, a smaller one, will take 400 logs. The houses are on the same street, being built by people who were neighbors in Clinton. If they were to go to someone and buy the logs already cut and milled, they would have to pay about $2 per foot, or about $16 for an eight-folength of log used to construct the homes. To purchase 900 logs would cost a great deal of money. ", But they are saving a lot of money by . cutting milling, and hauling the logs themselves. They are spending a lot of time building the houses themselves. Saving a lot of money and spending a lot of time are part of the sacrifice the Loosiis, Halls and others are making so their families can be . ot 'The Most Expensive Thing Is Time.' They also have a commitment not to do anything to their homes that they cant pay for in cash. Cash is hard to find, Dimond said, when he saves it for windows and finds himself spending it for an unexpected dentist bill instead. During the 1978 LDS World Conference, their Prophet, Spencer W. Kimball, told his people to clear themselves of all worldly debts, Homer Hall took to heart the words of his prophet. He talked to Dimond Loosli and other neighbors in Clinton to decide how to get out of debt. He was already buying a house. He could sell it and buy a prefab. But to buy a prefab with the equity he had accumulated would merely give him a larger house with smaller monthly payments. That wouldnt do. A second option looked very , promising. . Homes located at the present Layton Mall site had to be moved or destroyed. The 1978 market value of those homes, Homer said, was set between $80,000 and $100,000. . , We could buy the house for about $4,000 and have it moved for $20,000, he said. Both he and his wife agreed it was a very appealing' deal. But the deal literally fell through. The developer sold the fixtures, carpets, and drapes for more than $4,000, destroyed the house, and used the brick and wood as landfill. It was less expensive for them to destroy the home than it was to sell it to us and haul in dirt to fill in the hole, Homer said. But it gave us a taste of how if feels to own a house outright. They started looking at other options. They looked at log houses. They were sold in packages. One package sold for $25,000. Another sold for $20,000. A third sold for $12,000. The money bought essentially the same structure. The answer was obvious for them. We asked ourselves why we should spend that much money for timber when we could do it ourselves for a great deal less, said Mrs. Hall. They could save a lot of money by cutting the timber, milling it themselves and transporting it to the construction site. They would also build the house themselves. They way they had things planned, the biggest expense for builddng was tied up in tools, transportation and gasoline. Hall had to sell his home before he could begin. He was lucky to find a buyer who didnt want to move in for six months.. That gave him and his friends time to build the house he had designed. He bought some land in the western reaches of Davis County', Syracuse. He looked into building codes, obtained building permits and began working. The land had to be drained before they could dig the foundation. The high water table made the land very soggy. They got the main section built before winter. The Halls could live in it now. The utility companies were very prompt. Homer said they literally went out of their way to put in the phone and electricity. - . .ar The home is heated by a central wood well provides burning stove. A y the drinking water for the house. The water is piped to five other homes, including the Looslis. The most expensive thing of all is time, Hall said. We spent two weeks just cutting logs. We milled the logs ourselves. The logs took three men three weeks to set into place. To accomplish the task, you must be willing to sacrifice and work with each other. After civic, church, and job responsibilities, its hard to find time to work on our house and on the other houses in the neighborhood. It. seems that every spare minute is spent working, Hall said. As a result, family activities are carefully planned. Mrs. Hall said they have become very special now that 480-fo- two-stor- IT'S HARD TO find time to work on the house this time of year. When Dimond Loosli gets home from work at 5:30, it is already dark. But now the time is so precious. The Halls have plans for using wind poWer as an electrical source. The wind blows off the lake almost constantly, they said. They also plan a beehive and fruit trees to grow their own food. They are in their house now. When they can pay cash, they will finish another section of the house. Living in an unfinished house is an inconvenience they say they can live with because the house will soon be complete and paid for. Some people say the Halls are making a big mistake. Others are very happy for them. A friend once asked Hall if it was true that they were building , their own commune down there. He replied that would be going against his church. He is doing it to get out of debt and to make his family he said. He is not afraid of donating his time to a good cause either. He is his churchs Stake Canning Coordinator. He helps families become prepared. It is very important for him to make sure other people have food and other basic necessities. The Loosiis were neighbors of the Halls in Clinton. They were also buying a house. The house was nice but small, Loosli said. It also came with a g, 30-ye-ar house has electricity. So Loosli and his friends can work inside. Soon it will be ready for the family to move in. mortgage. So he sold his house and farm house. He then fixed up the farm house, and sold it too. A trailer court in the area was Loosli bought two vandalized trailers for $1,000 and fixed them up. bought a van-dalize- d. The trailers sit in front of his partially completed home, down the road from the Halls new home. He uses one trailer for living quarters. The other is used as a laundry room and repair shop, and it sometimes seconds as sleeping quarters for some of his six children. The trailers are cramped quarters for eight people, and Linda is expecting her seventh child this spring. They hope to be in their home by then. This winter will be the second one spent in the trailer. Linda said it has been hard making . from their home in trailer. But she said life is hard regardless of where one lives. Life is hard here, but it is also hard living another lifestyle, she said. One of the hardest things for me is putting up with the mess, said Loosli. I like a clean place, free of clutter. But when you build a house and live with your wife and six kids in two trailers and a camper, things get messy. It is a the transition Clinton to the sacrifice he said he is willing to put up with for the time being. Continued on Page 6A ah'- - - J IT ALL STARTED with a dream a dream to be dream of a dream Stephenie Loosli, oldest daughter of Dimond and Linda Loosli, shares with her five sisters and brothers and her parents. nt TWO TRAILERS and a camper are a world of difference from the new home the Loosiis were busing in Clinton. With luck, they will be in their i' new home in western Davis County by Christmas. self-relian- , 4B ' |