From dump to dum-dah-dummmm!

So how does one just decide to build a log home from scratch? Ah, yes. The burning question of our age. The early settlers from Vermont who trekked through the North Country clearing land and building a life in the wilderness built their homes from log out of necessity. (No Home Depot.) We, however, apparently grew so allergic to Suburbia that we went off the deep end of rural living. Actually, The Husband simply got Log Fever.

You don't hear much about Log Fever in the news. It is a growing public health threat and I'm beginning a campaign with a walk to raise awareness and a brown ribbon for your car bumper. Our cute animated mascot for the TV public service announcements is a beaver.

But I digress. When we moved back to the North Country nigh unto five years ago, The Husband joined his father in business. Part of the business includes log rental cabins on The Lake. These cabins were built in the 1930s and were one-room affairs with wood stoves. Cute, homey, tiny. When my FIL took over the business from his Uncle in 1969, he also inherited these cabins. Over the years, three of the cabins had been expanded and renovated. The Uncle lives in one of the cabins, hermit-like. And then there was Cabin Three.

Somewhere along the way, Cabin 3 fell into disrepair. (She says with ironically arched eyebrow). It actually had a TREE growing on its roof. The Husband, fresh from the world of avionics, eager to dive into the world of manual labor, bullied, cajoled, convinced his father to save Cabin 3, rather than tear it down. He studied log-building techniques, researched how to replace a single rotten log in an existing wall, how to join a 'stick' addition to a log structure.... He read websites, talked to company reps, grilled friends and relatives who had lived in and built with log, and walked around with log books for months. And little by little, he succumbed. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for him now. Bob has got the Log Fever, and it's a pretty bad case.

Cabin 3 now looks like this:

At one point during the renovation and expansion of Cabin 3, Bob turned to me and said, "Honey, I done got the Log Fever, and I'm gonna build us a log house."

Well, maybe not really like that. But now I've got a log house....ish.