Justin,

You and I seem to have a lot in common in terms of experience and goals. I started my education by attending a two-week seminar at the Shelter Institute (shelterinstitute.com) in Bath, Maine. They teach every aspect of home construction from site selection to design to construction and even financing and insurance. They have a three-week course that is more hands on, but I couldn't take that much time. They tend to lead you to the conclusion that a timber frame with SIPs is the way to go, but they will teach you all other forms of construction, including some that are pretty unique (tipis, yurts, etc.)

They also offer a one-week post and beam class in which you will cut and test-erect a timber frame for one of their brave clients. I also took this course and found it to be a good start toward developing the skills necessary to try it myself. I also attended a Guild-sponsored class in which we cut and erected a barn for a living history farm in Ohio. It, too, was a good experience, frustrated by bad weather and some other scheduling problems, but well worthwhile. I can assure you that this amount of exposure is nowhere near enough to do fulfill your dream, but there is no shortage of opportunities. I am currently scheduled to attend a class in PA being conducted by Fox Maple School in an attempt to get as broad a perspective as I can, rather than getting all my training from one source. One other piece of advice I have is to keep your training sessions as close together as possible or experiment with what you have learned, because I am finding the older I get, the less I remember from one time to the next.

Good Luck!