Building the house part 2

Ryan, our contractor, backfilled this area before starting on the porch.  We will be adding more dirt and big rocks to keep it all from eroding later. 

You can see the porch starting to take shape.

Starting to put the roof decking on.  We decided on the traditional standing seam roof, green of course.  The window frames and doors will be green also.

 This part will be glass. 

The area on the right is the office.  I'm looking forward to spending quiet time reading up here.

We love the look of half-round logs for the staircase.  There is debate about how best to give them more traction.  Don't want anybody falling down the stairs.

 These are 12" beams. 

There will be another set of stairs going down into the basement, so people can enter from the garage.  The basement also will have an equipment room for the furnace and water heater, plus loads of storage.  Don can't wait to get a blade for his ATV and start plowing the snow.  (Actually, I'm the one that's looking forward to that!)  Don just wants to get on the ATV and go looking for elk.

In addition to the loft office, there is a second master bedroom, a bunk bedroom, and a bathroom upstairs, with lots of closet space also.

 Adding the cover over the porch. 

 Looking up at the front gable area.  The large hole is the picture window for the main living area.

 Detail work.

 I think he is working on the gable truss over the garage. 

 Fitting the deck boards around the porch columns.

This company really does beautiful work.  The logs are from standing dead trees, which helps minimize shrinking and settling.

Building elevations

Here are some drawings of how the house will look.  This is the front gable end, although some people think it is the side of the house.  Regardless, this looks west down the valley toward the river.  The staircase goes up to a mudroom.



This is the side porch, also known as the front!  My mother can't wait to put a chair out on the porch and watch the wildlife (chipmunks, deer and birds, hopefully not bears!).

The view toward the garage.  There is a staircase up into the house from the garage also.

Building the house part 1

September 29, 2010.  The crew is here, the trucks have arrived with the logs, and the walls are starting to go up!  We wish we could have been there to witness the beginning, but at least Ryan, the contractor, took lots of pictures.  We are using 10" diameter logs.  They have been milled to take off the bark and make them more uniform, but they still have a more hand-crafted look than the kit homes.  The log walls are put together using the Swedish coping method, which means that the top log has a notch cut out of it lengthwise, allowing it to fit down on top of the log below it.  This gives a stronger, more efficient fit.  It also is more aesthetically pleasing, at least to me.  A view from the north, looking toward the garage entrance.

The crew consists of six men.  They are hard workers, they don't stop till they're done, sun-up to sun-down. 

The holes are where the windows and doors will go.

A view looking northward.  There will be a porch on this side of the house.

The corner where the guys are working will be the downstairs master bedroom.

This area will be the great room, kitchen and mud room.  In Colorado, it's a good idea to have a mud room!

Almost done with the first floor.  We still need to backfill the foundation a bit more.

There was a time when Don & I thought we would like to hand-build a log home ourselves.  We actually spent a week's vacation at a log-home building school in Minnesota, learning how to peel logs, hand-scribe them and do the Swedish coping by hand with a chain saw.  What were we thinking?!!!

Starting on the second story.  We will be sheetrocking the interior walls ourselves.

The crew was lucky enough to have good weather.  It's early October, and hunting season has started.  There are lots of deer and elk in the Cuchara area.  Don is hoping to take advantage of that next year!

Putting on the center beam for the roof.

Obviously nobody is afraid of heights!

The rafters are starting to go on.

The basement before the floor is poured.