Finishing up the Log Home

These photos start in the fall of 2018 and the priority was making the home livable as quickly as possible. We had been staying in the garage while working on the house and it was getting old, but after being ripped off by the builder we have to do as much work ourselves as we can.
Sanding interior walls. Almost every square foot of the logs, inside and out, had to be sanded clean.
Had to hire someone to help assemble the staircase and lift it into place. It took four men and a winch to set them. The 68-inch ceiling fan I installed myself with help from my wife.
Sanding the great room gable. To stain the ceiling beams scaffolding had to be erected.
We discovered soon after the builder left that he had not installed all the cross beams. These are structural components and not optional. The reason this one wasn't installed is because he cut the angles wrong on the original piece. The only other piece of beam left was a miscut rafter (do you see a trend here) that had been laying out in the rain and mud for nearly a year. It was cleaned up, dried out and sanded as clean as I could. I mounted it by myself with the help of a hoist.
Building the railings for the loft. The stairs still need rails too.
Installing the oak tounge-and-groove flooring. The floor will eventually be stained and sealed with an oil finish.
I hired a plumber to install all the plumbing in the house. This is the master bath.
The hickory cabinets are ready-to-assemble cabinetry purchased online. All solid wood and plywood veneers, no particle board. I assembled and installed the cabinets myself but not the countertops. The granite was cut and installed by the granite company.
Another look at the kitchen cabinets and granite countertops. Because I used ready-to-assemble cabinets and did the installation myself, the kitchen was completed, countertops, appliances and all, for about the same amount I was quoted by the "big box" stores for just the cabinets alone.
Sanding and staining the logs outside. All the outside log walls were sanded clean and then treated with borate. I stained most of the walls and then my wife took over, finished the walls and stained almost all the porch rafters and rails.
We stained for most of two months. It was all brushed on except the pickets in the railinngs. Over 600 pickets is just too many to try to brush.
Still staining, but getting closer to finished. All the non-pressure treated logs, rafters and posts are getting two coats of stain. The pressure treated boards only got one coat and will need a second coat when it warns up again.

Pressure treated deck boards are notorious for splintering as they dry out, and these boards were no exception. Every inch of the boards were desplintered by hand and then sanded smooth, to prevent anyone, especially our 2-year old grandson, from being injured by splinters. Took a couple weeks to finish up.
Still staining. We didn't stop until it was too cold to continue.
More to come...
Page created 11/10/2019
​Last update 3/5/2020