This book takes you through the steps of how to build your own house. It helps you identify problem areas in building, and also gives you the courage to build a home yourself. Several different kinds of construction are discussed including post and beam homes, insulated concrete forms, and log home although the standard "stick" building procedure is followed closely by the book.This book takes the reader through the necessary steps to build a house, from the footings/foundation to actual completion the house. It's a step-by-step process outlined by the book. The author believes like Thoreau: "There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?" Henry David Thoreau, Walden