March 2012 Blog Posts (19)

Spring in Richmond is certainly much different than in Boston, as least when I was there this past week. Whites and pinks and purples on fields of varying shades of green are everywhere, looking like a painter's exuberant palette after years of canvases. The dead of winter once again is resurrecting to life, just in time for Easter, as it always does, ever and…

Anyone who doesn’t think log homes are the best homes there are, promptly proceed to Drywall.com. Everybody left either already wants to live in a log home, or at least is thinking about whether they might like to. Both groups agree log homes are tops.

After seeing samples of these charming homes, many log lovers wonder what makes some log homes better than others. Not in a loggier-than-thou sense, but by standing out from the crowd.

Curiously, size and money matter little.…

Jimmy dropped me off at the cabin on the way home from the airport. Darien met us there and showed me what Mr. Seals and Mike have been up to -- mostly things that will enable us to live in the cabin while the rest of the work goes on around us. ...

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I spoke to Darien this evening after returning from my a dinner of striped bass with colleagues in Boston. I caught her at the cabin, where she had retreated after the electricity went out at Gotham following a sudden storm. This is a switch from the usual pattern of Gotham being the safe house during storms. She reported no leaks from the hard rain, which is good news,…

The neighborhood owl has returned. Gabriel spotted it on his property in the soft evening light. Darien has seen it as well. We can hear its haunting call echoing through the trees at different hours of the day. Many of the branches are still barren of leaves, so it…

The neighborhood owl has returned. Gabriel spotted it on his property in the soft evening light. Darien has seen it as well. We can hear its haunting call echoing through the trees at different hours of the day. Many of the branches are still barren of leaves, so it…

Mr. Seals is working on a punch list of things to complete before we move in. We don't expect him to actually have it all done, but the cabin should be livable.

That is, if we can keep the water out.

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7 more days to go.



We will have a variety of unfamiliar surfaces to attend to once we move into the cabin. Darien has been researching different cleaning solutions that have minimal negative environmental or health side affects. Here is what she has come up with so far.

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In light of the fact that it is The National Day of Unplugging (observed from sunset on Friday, March 23, to sunset on Saturday, March 24), which I know many log home and cabin owners are likely more than happy to do on any given day to unwind and reconnect with the outside world, I’m curious to what degree you all have found technology to be actually be advantageous in your quest for information surrounding construction, financing, land, etc., for your dream place.

We’ve…

I watched Indiana play a few days ago and knew trouble was on the way for VCU. True enough, it was bad times on Saturday night, like seeing earthquakes and lightning and knowing the rivers would overflow and the hurricanes blow. Indiana took the life out of VCU in the NCAA tournament in a heartbreak loss that we could have won. My response?

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Some 400 people graduated this spring from the Log Home University. They experienced a full-semester’s worth of knowledge in just one half-day session, held in cities from Minnesota to Florida.

At the university, bona-fide professors of logology lecture on the essentials of making a log home happen — the real nitty-gritty. One of the lessons is “Deciding on a Builder.” It identifies three ways your house might get built.

• A pro builds it. You hire a log-home…

Hi All!  I have an easy question for anyone who wants to take a moment to answer.  The Log & Timber Show is coming nearby this weekend.  I have a 25 year old log home and I wonder if these shows are completely geared to building new homes.  Has anyone been to this event? I'm hoping for information and demonstrations on upkeep, improvements and repairs.  It's not around the corner, but I'd love to go if it's going to be useful.  Thank you in advance!!!

I came back from the cabin to find Antonia and Darien taking a break from packing up the house. It seems part of their strategy is to finish off any bottle that had already been opened so we wouldn't have to move it to our new house. They were working on the dregs of a bottle of golden, smokey Mezcal when I walked in. It is hard to argue with success, however. They were…

It’s hard to believe it’s already March. 2012 is well under way, with its early months spent trying to determine what the year will bring. Or at least that’s what my email inbox is telling me, with the plethora of announcements regarding this year’s home decor and design trends. One of increasing interest over the past couple of years: color.

Leading into the housing bubble burst, homeowners had been wary to infuse any drastic color into their homes. (Neutral palettes are…

Before you can build, you need to have land. Many future log-home owners already have that aspect of the planning covered, whether they inherited family-held land or bought their property specifically for their log home. Others may not have bought their property yet, but they know exactly where they want to build, perhaps along a picturesque lake or near their family's…

The word "cabin" was once used derisively, evoking images of a rundown shanty with Jed Clampett sittin' on the front porch. But it's become a popular ambition in recent years, and the trend has been so overwhelmingly positive that we have an entire special issue called Cozy Cabins…

Ryan decided he would rather ski than lay floors, so we are letting our heart pine age another week in the cabin before he finishes off the den. However, Mr. Seals, in spite of suffering an abscessed tooth, has been diligently showing up at the cabin. Most recently, he completed cutting and fitting all the pine for the stairs. While he waits for Ryan to fasten…

Folks planning a log home often have questions about lighting it. That’s because wood is a harder building material to illuminate than drywall and because today’s log homes typically have more openness, especially in great rooms, which combine living room, dining area and kitchen, each of which has its own lighting needs.

Here are five lighting tips from Lynn Gastineau…

Ok, guess we got lazy once we finally moved in and haven't uploaded any pics or comments in awhile!  Oops.

So, we put up some pics to show our progress.  We don't have much left inside.  We need to tile a shower and finish the basement steps and that's about it!  We do have lots to do outside though, lots of landscaping, walls to build, driveways to top, grass to plant, porches to build, porch ceilings and more.

Since we last posted, we have made lots of progress. We've been in…