CARBONDALE-- Building a new home, or even an addition is rarely considered a cheap project. But now, paying for the construction is even more painful because of the rising price of lumber.

"You add ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars to the cost of a house, it may keep them from being able to finance their home," said Associated Lumber's general manager Arthur Mize.

Mize says in just a year, the cost for framing lumber has jumped sixty-nine percent. And that's affected some local contractors, like Ralph Sellers at Bud James construction.

"Figured a lot of jobs that just didn't happen, because the people decided they didn't want to spend the money now," Sellers said. "It's probably a combination of the price of lumber, and the financial situation right now."

According to Mize, over the past couple of years, many lumber mills and suppliers have folded. That brought supplies down, but now demand is up, and homeowners doing the work themselves will be hardest hit.

"They're the ones that are going to probably pay the most in the long run, because of no planning," Mize said. "And what that amounts to is they're going to go in and buy whatever it is at the market time."

Mize says unless something drastically goes wrong with the housing market, the lumber prices will continue to skyrocket. So if you're looking towards a do-it-yourself project, and need to build a porch or a deck relatively soon, Mize suggests that you put the hammer to the nail rather quickly.

"Unless you really, really want to wait a long time, move quickly," said Mize. "Because the markets going to do nothing but go up, probably the rest of the summer."