PHASE FOUR Weeks 25 & 26 - Color Our House Honey

Weeks of November 19th & 24th - The weather is turning colder and rainy, which has delayed the exterior rail staining and landscaping, but the interior logs have been sanded and cleaned. Since the days seem to be growing shorter and colder rapidly, we are now using a powerful diesel heater supplied by our crew, and lights we purchased. Our crew wanted us to see if we could get more power into the house and we could for $500-$600 more, so we had to decline. The main issue is that everyone has to stop working a bit early and that power tools don't work as well. *****Norman and I spent the last two weekends cleaning the guest bedroom side of the house and caulking the entire house. For those of you who don't know, cracks in logs are normal, but I'm not too crazy about them and we filled in most of them, especially the bigger cracks. ***Our crew is staining the interior of the house this week and it looks great. We are applying one coat of stain and two coats of acrylic topcoat, so it should have a beautiful satin finish.. The ceilings and trim will be a natural pine color, a nice contrast, and will also have two coats.***Our landscaping rocks for under the prow deck have been delivered and should be laid out today. I was a bit disappointed in the color (a bit too reddish for my taste), but they will blend in alright.

PHASE FOUR: Weeks 22, 23 & 24 - Interior Work

Weeks of October 27th, Nov 3rd & Nov 10th - Wow, hard to believe that three weeks have gone by. Norman has been ill for most of that time, probably with the flu, missing two weeks of work. He did rev up enough to play a gig for the TPAC (Tennessee Psychological Association) annual convention in Nashville on November 7th. Our friend Eva, who has a beautiful voice, played with him and they sounded great despite the fact that he was a bit flaky what with the heavy cough & decongestant meds! We had hopes of doing all of our interior staining, but have ditched that idea along with our goal of moving in by Christmas. Here's why: Although we are not "old," we have both past age 50 a good while back and don't bounce back the way we once did! We have put so much pressure on ourselves to do much of the work ourselves and to get it done quickly that it is probably a factor in Norman's getting sick, and neither of us had been sleeping well. We have done very well so far in staying on budget, but we have decided that spending a bit extra for labor and finishing is well worth it. Both of us feel good about this decision, are sleeping better, and are now back to being excited rather than stressed about our home. It may be January or February before we move in, but that's OK. I read somewhere that it takes the average log home "owner-builder" 11 months to complete a log home, and it will take us 6-8 months, so we are still ahead of the game!
Here are highlights for the past three weeks:
****All of our fixed windows are now installed.
****While I was finishing up our tongue and groove sealing on our prow deck, I got attacked by hordes of ladybugs! No kidding, there were thousands of them flocking around and on me and in the stain, to the point where I had to move everything inside. I'm told this is an annual event around here!
****The exterior staining is done except for the deck railings and spindles and looks great! We had a moment of panic this weekend when it snowed and we saw white streaks and spots all over our stain! A call to our stain company put our minds at ease, though, after they explained it is something called the "blushing effect" that will go away as the weather warms up. It appeared because it actually takes up to three weeks for the stain to "cure" and very cold weather can cause temporary spots.
****We have decided to stain the interior logs a light honey, leaving the ceiling and trim work natural pine. After seeing the ceilings up and the vast expanses of light pine everywhere, it began to bother us that our floors and cabinets are also very light (natural hickory) in color and we decided we needed a contrast. The light honey color complements the exterior dark honey and is really just a shade or two darker than the natural pine color. (If anyone is interested, go to the Permachink website and look up the color.) .
****Gutters are installed - a brown color that looks good with the colors of the roof and stonework.
****Front and mudroom doors (mahogany) are trimmed out and delivered. They will be stained a "chestnut brown" shade which goes with the gutters, roof and stonework (and the knots in the logs!) Norman and I will be staining them this weekend (Nov 22nd).
****We went ahead and finished our attic after all (except for heat and air) and love it! We had some leftover log siding, so put that in the gable sides and put tongue and groove in the ceiling. The attic floor and ceiling are both insulated with R-30 so we can bring a small heater or AC unit upstairs if we need to, but it should stay fairly cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We then had 4' knee walls built with very cute doors (sort of cross-buck style) made for the openings which will give us storage space on two sides 6' deep and about 18' long. We will probably floor it with carpet (later). Norman is going to use this as his music room, so he is thrilled about that! It will be about 13' x 18' or about 250 square feet!
****We got a great bid/offer by our "mountain man," Ronnie, to do a lot of clearing and landscaping in the woods around our home, so took him up on it and it looks great! It is now much more open and improves our view of rock outcroppings to the East and Jump Off Ridge to the South. As far as the landscaping around our house to the tree line, Charles Thomas' crew began "dressing up" the land (final backfilling and leveling) and seed sowing this week (November 17th). A couple of weeks ago he and our electrician set up our permanent electric meter on a post about 60' from the house, as Norman didn't want it stuck on the front of the house. We are going to paint it and landscape around it (disguise it as a bird feeder or something - ha!)
****All of our tongue & groove ceilings are done and look amazing. Our insulation is done. We really went all out with the insulation, putting R-30 in all ceilings, R-19 in almost all of our walls and closets, and R13 in the gabled areas with siding (because R-19 wouldn't fit). We have noticed, as has our crew, how much warmer it is in the house, even in cold weather, because of this, and how very quiet! I was startled to hear that very few people in this are use R-30, using R-19 instead. We would have actually preferred R-38, but our cathedral ceilings are not built to accommodate that (a design change we would probably have made if we had known better!).
Projections/Next Projects: The guys (Sam Thornley and his crew of two, brother Joe and friend Skip) are currently preparing the great room and master bedroom/bathroom side of the house for staining and sealing, sanding and cleaning the logs. We are doing the other side of the house ourselves to save money (and because we don't have to climb scaffolds to do it!). They are also doing a bit of trim work. Following that, they will be doing more trim work, laying tile, hanging drywall, hanging and trimming out our doors (after Norman and I stain and seal them), then laying our wood floors. After the floors go down our cabinets and granite will be installed, then our electrican/plumber/HVAC guys will connect everything for the final inspection. We think we will be done with all before the end of the year (S).