The Sun is out and we are back at work !

So the sun was out and so was I on a walk around the pond. This picture is taken at one end of our pond that is close to the road and so this is what all the people driving by for the last 4 days have been looking at. Yes that is a white wall....it was very cold here last week and so we had the insulators come out and insulate that wall to try and stay a bit warmer.....we will have to take that out to do some wiring but just wanted to keep our heating bills more in line.

By the way I think if you click on any of these pictures they will get bigger ....so you can see what I'm talking about .....


So next stop on this walk was by what was a big old Apple Tree that really was more of a bush cause nobody took care of it. So any guess as to what is going on here ?????
If you say Beaver you are correct and if we can get Dylan ( our son for those who don't know ) to remember to bring over his animal camera maybe we will get to see him or them at work....

This is what he or she or they do is cut down the branches then take them into the pond and strip the bark off ....and yes have a beer or two : )

This is the real reason for the walk as first thing this morning I noticed while we where gone this weekend we had some new babies at the pond. This is one family and the other one I saw had 5 and we have at least 2 more mom's sitting. I have a good story I'll tell you about in the next post when I have more pictures.....

This was last week job for Cliff and Tom sorry didn't take any pictures of the action but this used to be a walking bridge over a small inlet in between our big pond and the smaller one behind us and Cliff had that big boy toy for the month so he could put in a culvert and make a road to drive over. Once that was done he took apart our walking bridge and put it on each side of his new road....OK onto the good stuff for the day.....

The boys are peeling new post for our house.....

The concrete guys are getting started with the footings....

They have put in support post and Cliff is taking out the tile around the old post to prepare for the new logs....

Then they had to take out the bolts from the old buckets....and take out the posts

In come the second of the new log posts.....I was in the office working for the first one and almost missed this....they don't really like the camera : (

Had to take a bit extra off the bottom....

Then use the sledge hammer a couple of times.....so at the end of Monday this is how it looked

Concrete is ready to get inspected and hopefully we pour the footings and stem walls on Tuesday for the wing....

Before posts and no insulation.......

After 2 cool new log post !!!!

Our addition more fun !

Hang with me today because I have added all the newest pictures and it brings us up to date with what is going on at our place....

Above picture starts off on the 11th of this month where you can see we put in new footings and sub floor. We have also added posts to hold the glu-lams. You don't see it but there is under floor insulation there also and this hole in the stem wall is to be able to get to the crawl space. See the log corners on the far left and right will as you will see below we needed to remove them so we could add in new logs walls.



Here Dylan our son is cutting the log wall out which he did on both sides of the corners on both sides of the house.




Cliff is checking it out notice the hole and logs on the ground....yes I was wondering about this also cause it still feels like winter at night around here....and some days also !



We did fill this hole with a board and insulation for the weekend.....




On the 14th Dylan & Noah were back putting up the new log walls on both sides and then they framed in the Gable end this wall will connect to the new wing for my parents.

Also I know you may be looking at the fact that we have a straight line of logs old and new.... will I can't wait for you to see how we finish that off with a real cool trim we are going to do later.

Why not logs on the gable end....we thought about it and talked about it and then couldn't figure out which side would get the flat side of the log and which would get the round so we just framed it and then we are sheeting the inside of our part for a couple of reasons ....one is for better sound barrier and another reason is we may use log siding inside our gable end ( still not a given for sure ) and the guys will screw that in from the outside so you will not see the connections on the inside.

So on the next picture you see Noah on the left finishing the sheeting and Dylan on the right side tearing down the original outside log wall which has log siding above the log wall.

OK here comes the fun part this morning starts the big tear down of our original log gable end you may have to go back to the post before this so you can remember what that used to look like....

At this point they have taken out the kitchen window on right the Double Doors in the middle ( when we first moved in those where our front doors ) and then above them was a fixed trap window.

Dylan got out his chain saw to cut the Kitchen side of log wall in half ...what he was cutting was the lags that connect one log to another.

Then they pulled down the top half of the wall......

Then they jumped on the bottom half of the wall....and some wonder if lags will hold up a log wall....

So on the family room side ....oops don't let this happen to you : )

So here is what it looks like opened up before we cleaned up.

So the next post will show how we are going to put it back together....remembering we are still in the process and want to live with this part over the weekend to get a better feel for our new space so you will have to come back again.

Can I add on to a log home?

Sometimes we get ask this question and so I thought I would let you follow along with us and our addition. Our home was built in 1996 and we have since added on a couple of times by adding a Entry Breezeway that connected a 30 x 30 garage with our office above. We have also cut into the log wall to add a full masonry fireplace. The above pictures show this from the Street and the back side of our home.

But starting this spring we are adding onto the other end of our home to make out kitchen/ family room area bigger by in closing this 8' by 28' porch and then on to that we are adding a 28' x 30' wing for my parents to move into.

OK so that is all the before pictures now lets get onto the good stuff where you get to tear stuff up : )

Had to remove the porch first so we could add footing for a foundation. So below you see Cliff digging for footing and then using the bucket to carry away old footing.....big boy toys, got to love them !

One of the bad things is we had to remove some of our big trees to make room for this so above you see them behind the backhoe and below is the tree guys removing them.

They where some tall trees ...we took 2 of them down. And will use some of the wood for fire wood but most of the big stuff will go to a friend who has a portable saw mill and will use them to make slabs....more big boy toys....

That is it for now the next post will show the process of putting it all back together along with cutting out the log wall.........stay turned !

Where or How to Start

So I have been thinking lately about what should I talk about here and this thought came to mind where or how to start. Everybody starts in a different place but I'm going to toss out a couple of suggestions of what I think helps.

I think one very big thought is to figure out what the budget is going to be and I know this is going to be uncomfortable to most of you but sharing that budget early on with whomever you are going to be working with will help big time. Let me explain why this is.

We all have dreams and wish lists of things we want or find important to us. That is good even having pictures will be good also. But I find in my own life and others I talk to also that sometimes the list doesn't match up with the budget. And so when I'm working with you I'm not trying to spend the budget but in fact I find I'm trying to help you get as much in your budget as we can and not going over that. But if I don't know your budget then I'm of no help what so ever and in fact I'm not only wasting your time but also mine.

So that is one thing to figure out early on in the process and you may have a very good feeling how much that is or maybe you need to talk to a lender about what your budget is (lenders now more than ever you need to be working with someone who understands log homes and we have some really great people in this area so please let us help you). One thing I can say loans have changed lately and are still changing daily.....

So then another very important thing to do is to visit us or any company to see the product first hand.......one of things Cliff & I love to do is a "Customer home tour" this usually takes 4 plus hours and once we know that this is what you are going to do and then we have some ideas of what you are looking to do before we sit down and do the contracts we love to put you into our car and take you out and about to show you different homes and product.

This will allow you a chance to talk to home owners ( about us if you want to : ) and their experiences and it will also let you see the many different looks of logs , log corners, options such as log posts inside and out or maybe should I do all interior wood or some sheetrock or maybe it is log stairs you want. There are many things you will see on this tour maybe it is a home that is like what you want and maybe it isn't at all what you like but they have added an option you want to see...... so as you can see from the many pictures I have placed in this post that there is a good reason if you plan to build to call us come visit us and lets talk.

If you look at the "Calendar of Events" tab you will see that we also have some up coming Open House dates this is a time to come see one of our customers homes maybe in your area where you live or maybe it is the style of home you like.