Stain!

My beautiful raw, lovely, virgin logs are all growed up!  They have a pretty new brown stain.  

I will go on record as admitting that I was wrong.  I did not want to stain the logs.  Yes, I understand that they need some protection from the elements.  Yes, I understand that they were weathering gray.  THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS BABY LOGS!  Leave 'em alone, I said.  

The Hubs didn't listen.  But, he was right.

We are using a semi-transparent stain and the unique character of each log is still very apparent.  The color is a gorgeous light chocolate.  I was wrong.  It is BEAUTIFUL!

F-I-L Jim lovingly brushes on the stain

The Hubs and The Boy are on the other side of the house using the sprayer.  The race is on!

The darker logs now show off the light stones of the chimney even better!

A close up of the raw logs and the newly stained logs

We are now at-home-in-brown-logs!

*Sigh* At Long Last

I have been a blissfully contented woman this week.  Because?  I have come home to a crackling, flickering, toe-warming fire in the fireplace each day!   It is soul-soothingly lovely.


We waited until both sets of parents could be present for the first fire, since they have been such a big part of the building of this house.  So, since Bob's folks FINALLY returned home from that wicked parent-stealing Florida last week, we all gathered 'round on Easter Sunday to ceremonially light the lights, so to speak.

 

If you'll recall, we have not yet faced the chimney... or laid a properly pretty hearth... or purchased an adequately-sized screen.  But, who needs 'em?!

  
*Sigh*  A thing of beauty.  

Aaaaaand..... we're in!!



Hey, you guys!!  I've been absent from the blog for a month for the BEST of reasons...  okay, also because I'm lazy and have been without an internet connection...   but the main reason is that we MOVED INTO THE LOG HOUSE!!!  

I KNOW!   EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! 

Thanks to a little push and help from our friends Bert and Lisa and my mother, we moved the big stuff out to the new house the weekend before Christmas.  Despite our herculean effort, though, we left quite a bit of detritus littered about the old house which we are *ahem* still boxing up in drips and drabs.  Yes, I know.  UGH. 

But, I digress.  Once we had that major load of schtuff moved out to the new house, The Hubs and I sort of looked at each other and said, "What the heck? Let's just ...  sleep here." 

And we did.  And there was much rejoicing.

My Pennsylvanian sister Ells arrived a few days before Christmas and helped us decorate.  The new house.  For CHRISTMAS.  It. was. wonderful.  You have not seen a happier girl than this girl right here.    On Christmas day, we hosted my whole family for gifting and eating and more happiness.  The only thing that could have made our full hearts even closer to bursting is if Bob's parents hadn't abandoned us and the cold northern winter for the alligator-infested warmth of Florida --  er, I mean, if Bob's family had also been present.  We can't wait for them to return and for all the cousins to experience the joy of log-a-riffic living this summer. 

 To illustrate said happiness, I submit this photographic evidence:

Cooking for the first time in the new house.  With cheese, appropriately.

Hey, I didn't say it was a full, fancy meal.  What's wrong with grilled cheese?

The dining room... with furniture sort of temporarily scattered about.  But - look - a table cloth!

The Boy and The Girl on Christmas morning.  In the log house.  For Christmas. 

EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!   Sorry.  It's still just so awesome.

The stockings were hung by the (unfaced) chimney with care... by an 8 year old whose decorating ideas consist of hanging sparkly clumps of garland on those metal tab things like birds' nests.

Just a gratuitous shot of the interior of the house. 

(This is standing in the dining room, looking through the living room toward the arctic entry/front door.)

Bob and I, finally at home in logs.

Too many things

I discovered today that there are too many things left to do to move in to The Log House.  We're never moving in.  

Well, at least that's the way it feels today. 

Too much left to pack.  Too much left to clean.  Too much left to build/finish/paint.

I spent HOURS just vacuuming the first floor log walls and the rest of the dining room and kitchen ceilings and cleaning windows of accumulated grime and adhesive from those manufacturer stickers that we just never took off before.

But I am digging those double-hung windows!  

I might actually clean those windows again within the coming decade.  

Bob and his father built a temporary railing on the balcony.  Eventually it will be made of log and bent twig, but for now, it'll keep me from falling off the edge.  Temporary, but sturdy.  

But there's still so much left to do:  

• clean out the arctic entry
• prime and paint the arctic entry
• select, purchase and install flooring in the arctic entry
• install hooks for coats and hats and bins for gloves and tuques
• move all the construction materials to the basement or to the shop
• clean the upstairs -- floors, walls, ceilings
• prime and paint the master bedroom walls
• install the board ceiling in the master bedroom
• let's not even talk about the master bathroom
• install bedroom and bathroom doors on the first floor
• put several coats of poly on the bedroom and bathroom doors
• stair treads and risers
• hearth and stone facing on the chimney
• exterior door face casings and filling in that empty spot over those doors
• laundry room wall and door

I'm not even listing things like exterior window casings, baseboard, closet doors, laundry chute doors, the whole closet in the master bedroom....      okay, well, I guess I did list them.  But there's more!  I'm just getting too depressed thinking of them all. 

It doesn't all have to be done before we move our schtuff out of the house in town and out to The Lake and start sleeping in logness and telling the post office to deliver our bills out there....   but a good bit of it does.   And now that I can see the move on the horizon, I feel impatient.  

There's the real problem:  I am impatient.  I want to live in my hand-crafted, lovely, perfect, beautiful log home NOW and I don't want to have to vacuum more sawdust to do it.  What an ungrateful whiner I am.  But, there you have it.  Warts and all.  

It's a work in progress, but I suppose so am I.  And if this house doesn't kill me, I sure will love living there.   *grumble*   You know:  in three more years.  

Just kidding.  

Not really.  

*Harumph*

The end.

Fireplace photos

So...  Joe commented on yesterday's post that he hadn't seen a picture of the fireplace and the inside of the chimney.   And I don't know if I've ever posted one.   You should know by now that I'm waaaaay too lazy to go back and look, but I did notice that there are a couple in my Flikr stream.  The inside of the chimney is not yet faced (stay tuned, however, my intrepid log-lovers!), and is currently totally hidden by a mass of construction materials, including some gazillion-foot-long boards that The Husband milled himself.  So, taking a photo right now is not going to help the situation.  Instead, I send you over to espy the photos in Flikr.  Be gone with you!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/athomeinlogs/

Snowy logs

It's winter all right!   We trekked up to The Log House to show off Its Royal Loggyness to my sister and an old friend and I snapped a few pics to atone for my blogging laziness.

The view into the snowy woods behind the house, as seen from the master bathroom.

Isn't the sight of a stone-faced chimney enough to make you weep?   No?  It's just me, then.

Bob and Old Friend Rob

My sister EllieBellyJellyBean lives in far-off P.A., and hadn't seen the interior of the house in a while.  She was pleasantly surprised.  It's hard to imagine what it'll look like when all you have to go on is: "... and over here will be the kitchen, and imagine that there's a wall here...." etc.

The Girl pretends to sweep the floor as she dances with a broom and kicks up dust.

We priced front doors the other day and when I recover from my heart attack and we decide which organ to sell to pay for it, I'll have that progress to show you.  Plus, after the turn of the new year, The Hubs will start in earnest on some kitchen work.   Stay tuned for a fabulous 2014-in-Logs!

Ta-Da!

So, I couldn't wait until the scaffolding is down to show you the completed facing on the chimney exterior.  Betcha could have called that one, eh?    Whatevs.

BeCAUSE:  

TA-DA!!!!

We have a completed chimney facing!!  (on the outside, at least...)

So totally awesome, right?    The only correct answer here is an emphatic 'yes.'    Proceed.

Our Day In Logs

The facing of the chimney exterior is ALMOST done --  all but a little corner, so I'm holding off on my TA-DA!  pictures until the whole shebang is done, and the scaffolding down.  

In the meantime, the rain today nixed The Hubs' work plans, so I bundled us all off to The Lake to get wee bits done on The Log House.

What makes me nearly as happy as progress on The House?  Children reading. 

We put on some outlet and switch covers in the downstairs bathroom:

Before

During

After.

Then Bob hooked up the sink in the upstairs bathroom:

We made a written list of the rest of the outlet/switch covers we need and I made a mental note of the remaining tasks that need to be done before we can move in (installation of kitchen cabinets & countertops, flooring over the entire first floor, exterior and interior doors, railing on the balcony, caulking in the bathrooms, wainscoting in the dining room, building that half wall between the dining and living rooms....  oh me oh my!)

But today, I'm grateful for the little things that were accomplished that bring us that small amount closer to done.

And that Bob didn't die while doing this:

Chimney facing

So, I was wrong.

What?  It's happened on occasion. In this case, I predicted that it would be a goodly while before more facing appeared on the chimney.  Wrong.  There has been a whole lotta stone facing going on!

July 24, 2013  

The Hubs and Doug-the-mason catch a break and get unseasonably cool weather

July 25, 2013

Look how fast they're making progress!

Just a cool/weird angle 

Squeeeeeeeee!!

Since the exterior facing will be finished any day now, I am turning my attention to the interior facing.  Originally, since Bob and I had different preferences for the style of stone facing, we'd agreed that the interior and exterior facing would be different:  he would choose the exterior and I the interior.   I like the flat look better, but now I don't know.  Not that the interior will be faced any time soon.  We're talking next year at the earliest. 

Still....  a girl can plan...  

A Sunflower gets her wish

Well, Sunflowerakb, you speak and it shall be done!  Look at what I discovered when I went out to The Lake today:

 

Doug-the-mason was facing the bottom of the chimney!   Now that the area above the roof line has all its stone facing, we're starting again at the bottom and heading toward the top.  

Here's Bob's much more coherent explanation of why we faced the top of the chimney first instead of starting at the bottom:

The flashing or interface between the chimney and the hole in the roof that the chimney rises up through is not easy to waterproof.  Rain can seep down the side of the unfinished chimney and down into the inside of the roof.  When the stone facing is applied this joint/seam is overlapped so water cannot enter and will instead run off onto the surface of the roof like all well behaved rain should.  And stone looks much nicer than concrete too! 

Yeah, that's what I said:  moisture, something something.....     

Details schmetails.  

More! Stone! Facing!

Even in this gazillion-degree heat, more stone went on the chimney today!

Oh, did you want a closer look at the new stone facing?    Here ya go:

Before you get too excited, though, I think once the area above the roofline is done, it'll be a nice long while before any more facing happens.   Ah, well.   Such is my Life in Logs.

Still, what do you think?