Introduction

[knuckledragger]

Hello,

My name is Jim and my wife and I just bought 20 acres in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas.  Eventually we would like to retire to this land, but before then (sometime within the next five years) we would like to build a small  cabin on it for a wilderness retreat for my family.  The land is all wooded right now and we are in the process of clearing some of it (by hand) in order to make a small campsite on it)  I may post questions every once in a while because we have never done anything like this before.

Thanks,
Jim

[MountainDon]

Hey there knuckledragger; Welcome to the forum! Post away, someone will always try to answer.

How much land? How many tress? We love photos.  
You can upload photos to photobucket.com (free) and use the link to make them appear in these pages.

[knuckledragger]

20 acres in Ozark mountains
-well on property (no pump yet)
-small storage shed (pretty rickety)
-a good bit of short leaf pine, some white oak, and various other hardwoods
-electricity at the road
-creek at the bottoom of sandstone bluffs ranging from 30-50 feet high(some sloping, some steep)
-paid $1250/acre

just gotta figure out what to do with it now.

[MountainDon]

Very good price compared to here.   But that's because the available privately owned land is either (a) already developed or (b) being held for future development at probably even higher prices than present, or (c) only being sold in a large parcel, like 28 acres listed for $500K or 39 acres for $780K  
http://jemezproperties.com/secludedac.htm
I have no personal interest in this, just list FYI

I'd camp out on it a lot, maybe drag an RV or trailer onto it for a while and decide where the best building spot is. Have fun and enjoy!

[glenn-k]

Sounds cool, Jim -- welcome to the forum.

I'd just dig a hole into the sandstone cliff and make a cave to live in. :-/

[travcojim]

Another fellow Ozarker,  I am outside of the Springdale Fayetteville area, we have 40 acres that we are doing the same thing with.  Right now we have a motorhome parked on it that we use from time to time, of course we are in battle with some mice who have deicded to use it more than us.  Its neverending trying to keep them out.  We got very luckly and got 40 acres for 15,000.  Has electric, well an old logging road that winds thru the forest and even a wet weather creek.  Tons of trees and hope to keep it that way.  We have been looking at the little house plans, but are still trying to figure out what we can build since I have never built anything with wood besides a good camp fire.

[travcojim]

Here are a few of the 40 that we have.

[n74tg]

Hello Jim, welcome to the forum.  I'm building my own down in Hot Springs.

Good luck with it.

[camp_hope]

Hi Jim, we are new to the forum as well. We are building in the Ozarks in Missouri. We bought 12 acres, building a house, and like you, we have never built anything before (except for a shed!).

Anyway, good luck! We look forward to seeing your progress!

Billie (Camp Hope)

[glenn-k]

Nice place too, travcoJim.  Great scenery.