Two and a half years ago our family of six took the plunge and moved from the city and out into the White Mountains of Arizona.

We started with untouched raw land and currently live in a 40-foot trailer as we build our house completely DIY. We’ve documented our entire journey on our YouTube channel, A BOULDER LIFE OFF GRID. The channel name has a double meaning, ‘boulder’ because we have a lot of boulders on our land, and also as in living a bold life that is different than the mainstream.

In the first two years, before we started construction on our home, we put in our off grid solar power system, septic system, water system and built our shed/power house to house all of our equipment.

The shed was our guinea pig to practice our framing and building skills and to get some of our mistakes, aka learning experiences, out of the way for when we built our home.

About a year and a half ago we purchased a Woodland Mills HM130MAX Portable Sawmill to mill some of our own lumber and to create a custom look to our buildings without breaking the bank. And with as much as we use the sawmill, it has definitely paid for itself.

"One might say, “but that’s a lot of time and hard work.” And I would say it is, but its so worth it."

For our shed, and ultimately what we plan on putting on our home, was sawmilled board on board live edge siding. We love the unique look we were able to achieve by milling the siding ourselves. Along with the siding we have milled beams and posts that will be central elements in our home construction.

The logs used for milling come from the national forest where we find freshly blown down trees. We built a log arch from scratch, and with this setup we can get some very hefty logs, and we use a backhoe to get the logs from the trailer onto the mill.

With all that has been said thus far, we can only imagine how much money we’ve saved by retrieving our logs versus having them delivered. Followed by milling our logs into lumber versus buying the lumber from the store. The mill has already paid for itself.

So, one might say, “but that’s a lot of time and hard work.” And I would say it is, but its so worth it. The feeling I get to experience when we save a log from rotting in the woods, mill that log into whatever dimensions we need, and then install that lumber in its final place, is so rewarding. It’s hard to explain and hard to describe, but it’s real and keeps me coming back to the mill for more.

We are currently building our home and we will be sawmilling all of the interior and exterior wood finishes. Come join us through our YouTube channel, A Boulder Life Off Grid. Thank you to Woodland Mills. We will be enjoying our sawmill for many years to come.

Happy Milling,

Jacob and Natalie