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Post by kawaiitimes on Apr 4, 2015 13:12:06 GMT
What a sweet story, lillith! That has me all teary eyed. And solargeek, we are the kind of people who do that, too (great idea with muffins for the town planners).
We recently had a mechanic swap a radiator for us. He came out to the house to do it which was great, and he left with a fresh loaf of bread, a jar of blackberry jam, pickled green beans, applesauce and pickles. He was very glad that he saved us the cost to tow the car!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2015 6:11:25 GMT
New here to this site but I have built many log homes. Both kits and one hand done. (Well we used a power planer but the end result was the same.)
Here are ways you can fix the uh oh's.
1. Use a latex stain that is more like a paint to coat the logs.
2. Have a wrap around porch that protects the logs. Who doesn't want a wrap around porch after all?
3. And most important ........ On the bottom two courses use treated logs, then install log siding over those logs. You will need to take the logs to a band saw mill and have them cut out the back side of the logs but leave the 2' or so so they can still overlap at the corners. Its the same way I did a pier and beam house and make the logs look like they go all the way to the ground.
If I am not explaining it very well let me know and I can get you some pics maybe from online. I wish I had of taken pictures of my other jobs but that was years ago before internet.
I think logs are fine and I have seen log houses that were over 100 years old in my area without treated lumber. They weren't cypress or cedar either as we have no locust around here. They were pine logs. Longleaf or old growth loblolly pine and not the slash pine of today but still, pine rots easily.
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Post by farmchix on Apr 5, 2015 11:13:56 GMT
Isn't that what it is all about lilith?
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Post by adirondackgal on Apr 21, 2015 12:23:31 GMT
For those who built alog cabin, what company did you go through? We are back to thinking about a log cabin again but want to build it ourselves if possible or at least what we can.
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Post by adirondackgal on Apr 22, 2015 0:59:40 GMT
Cabin Fever, Lilith and Solar Geek...your homes are beautiful. ErinP are you familiar with First Day Cottage or were you using that as an example? I was just wondering if anyone knows anything about this company?
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Post by kawaiitimes on Apr 22, 2015 11:47:13 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2015 13:22:19 GMT
Cabin Fever, Lilith and Solar Geek...your homes are beautiful. ErinP are you familiar with First Day Cottage or were you using that as an example? I was just wondering if anyone knows anything about this company? Yep I ordered their sales material. Read everything I could find, and then ended up asking myself why I needed to buy a set of plant/kit when I could do the exact same thing for less. So yes, it's based on FirstDay (or rather, Alex Wade, a builder in the 70s who first published the idea of "laminating" standard lumber into post&beam construction in his DIY books. David Howard, the FirstDay guy, was a partner of sorts)
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Post by solargeek on Apr 22, 2015 13:38:00 GMT
For those who built alog cabin, what company did you go through? We are back to thinking about a log cabin again but want to build it ourselves if possible or at least what we can. Ours was designed by Rapid River Rustic Cedar out of Rapid River Michigan, but they are no longer in business due to market crash in 2008-2009. Not a kit, just raw logs that the crew then built into our home. More importantly, Our GC was a finish carpenter so our interior was a work of art.
He took a huge hickory tree they had to fell for the house site and offered to make it into a custom 10' snack bar, and there was enough for all 3 baths to have that wood as the counters!!!! All for under $1,000. (Quotes for anything other than laminate for those counters was over $5,000). He also did all the closets (3 bedrooms, 1 linen, HUGE pantry (13'x10') with our wood. (Total of 8 trees had to come down to build). Again, I had wanted custom closets as the space was an issue and California Closets and all those Home Depot DIY custom closets were ridiculously expensive. He did it for less than 1/4 of quotes. I ordered the wrong stairs which were the focal point of the kitchen/great room; I had wanted the open look but ordered by accident the closed look; he custom cut 15" logs in half to make me the staircase of my dreams ----- ALL OF THIS WAS NO EXTRA COST on the bill. Every under-age (is that a word??) and every overage was meticulously detailed and there were NO charges for any change orders. My DH added so many things druing the build--- a full 30'x 8' sun porch with huge windows, and log and field stone surround and another ROOF and we changed tons of stuff inside as we went along (not recommended) and we only went 7% over -- all detailed. GC saved us tons and every invoice was included on each draw. If you look at realistic home building, the normal overage for building runs 11%-17% on a standard tract type home. We could not have been more pleased.
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Post by lilith on Apr 22, 2015 14:51:49 GMT
Solar geek - that's a great contractor! Did you bribe them with goodies? Our builds were all reclaimed lumber from the sites we built on. What we could not cut on our portable sawmill was sent to a larger mill in the area.
You can save a ton of money building or buying your own sawmill instead of transporting. Structural logs do have to be graded tho.
I'm still a fan of traditional building with solid log siding and awesome decorative logwork.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2015 2:41:46 GMT
. "When we show people photos of our place, I can't tell you how many of them call it a log cabin! LOL Haha, we have Western Red Cedar house and guest house and everyone calls them "log cabins" when they see it. Our inside is oak hardwood floors and knotty pine walls. To the OP: Take a look at these before and after. The only thing "bad" about wood on the side of the house is that you need to be prepared to maintain it every 3-7 years. If you do not want to put forth the effort/commitment then do not go with log or wood siding.....or atleast go with cedar. Cedar takes less maintenance and you can let it go "gray" if you want.... Just watch out for mildew. Our house had not been stained/weatherproofed in 8 years. This past summer I made the effort to strip and stain both our guest house and main house as I was seeing some mildew taking over. Wood is great, but you have ot maintain it. It took me 225 hours and $1800 to get both my house and guest house back to "new" this past summer....is beautiful though Main House before and after: Guest /Canning/food storage house before and after:
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Post by kawaiitimes on Apr 28, 2015 9:04:02 GMT
Those are beautiful homes. I do understand that wood takes a lot more maintenance than manufactured siding, but I think the trade-offs are worth it. Now... I may change my mind after spending 225 hours revamping our house.
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2015 20:14:24 GMT
We designed and had Rapid River Rustic Cedar (out of Rapid River Michigan) a green built, solar powered, solar heated and wood stove heated solid white cedar log home. I have to get to bed cause early up tomorrow but will post a ton for you. We loved it. If you can do it, do it. I took this picture of the back of the house (we built into a hill also). Love this home!!! Very nice!!!
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2015 20:19:58 GMT
We designed and had Rapid River Rustic Cedar (out of Rapid River Michigan) a green built, solar powered, solar heated and wood stove heated solid white cedar log home. I have to get to bed cause early up tomorrow but will post a ton for you. We loved it. If you can do it, do it. I took this picture of the back of the house (we built into a hill also). Where is this home located?
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Post by Melissa on May 2, 2015 20:46:42 GMT
Cabin Fever, in all the years I have been looking at photos of your home, I don't think I have ever seen it from that side. What is the room to the left?
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Post by Cabin Fever on May 2, 2015 22:59:26 GMT
Cabin Fever, in all the years I have been looking at photos of your home, I don't think I have ever seen it from that side. What is the room to the left? That photo is of the front of our home. The room behind the front wall is our combined livingroom-dining area-kitchen. The other side looks like this.....
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Post by solargeek on May 3, 2015 2:04:26 GMT
We designed and had Rapid River Rustic Cedar (out of Rapid River Michigan) a green built, solar powered, solar heated and wood stove heated solid white cedar log home. I have to get to bed cause early up tomorrow but will post a ton for you. We loved it. If you can do it, do it. I took this picture of the back of the house (we built into a hill also). Where is this home located? It is on the west end of Pewaukee Lake, Pewaukee WI. We sold in 2009 as we got transferred to Chicago
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Post by kawaiitimes on May 4, 2015 10:28:52 GMT
That is a gorgeous living room.
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