The Front Door Panel is Complete

Our door carver, Stacey Mitchell, sent us this picture showing the completed front door panel. We love the 3-D effect of the pine trees POPPING out of the door. We love the "Welcome" sign in the center with the pine cones on either side of it. Stacey told us he sent it off to the door shop to be installed into the actual pre-hung door. We plan to head off to Utah on the three-day weekend in February to pick it up. (February 7-9 is a holiday weekend for Lincoln's Birthday.)

Front Door Update

We just got some updated pictures from our door carver, Stacey Mitchell. WOW! We are going to LOVE this front door. If we ever move, the door is coming with us! This is the top panel, which will be part of a 42" arched knotty alder door. Gary will lightly stain the door so that it complements the color of the logs. There will be river rock around the entrance to set off the door, so it won't be lost in the color of the logs.

Logs Added to Dutch Hip Roof

This week Gary has been working on adding half round logs to the "Dutch Hip" roof section. He had to install a thermal insulation barrier first, then a layer of tar paper, and lastly, the half-round logs. He finished today! This is the view of the log cabin as you come up the driveway. This side of the house faces north. The big log you see on the ground (which rolled down the driveway) will be used in the kitchen as a vertical post to add some "character" to the interior. All the log posts and the fascia (edges of the roof line) still need to be stained. Gary is waiting until all the exterior doors are installed before he stains. This way, any of the logs that are nicked from ladders hitting them, and so on, can be touched up at the same time.

Picture a chimney rising up between the two log posts in the center. Someday we will have a rock chimney added to this picture...imagine a blazing fire in the middle of winter! Ahhhh!

The Shingling is Finished!

This afternoon the final shingle was nailed in place and we have a finished roof! This is where we had hoped to be the week before Christmas, but the weather changed our plans. Here is a picture of the front of the house. The variation in color is because of the shading--the shingles are all one color: Hunter Green!

A view of the three dormers on the west side of the house.

The south side of the house as you look west.

A view through the pine trees of the west side dormers.

A close-up of one of the dormers. Gary plans to add a light to each of the five dormers that will connect with the porch light so anytime the porch light is on, the dormers will be lit.

Gary has installed nine solar tubes throughout the log cabin. We had a solar tube in the shower at our old house (in Baldy Mesa) and it made a huge impact in regards to light, so we decided to add even more to this house. You can see how the bottom of this solar tube looks as if it has a light on--that's just the sun reflecting through the tube.

Happy New Year 2009

End of Day Four of Shingling

Putting shingles around the dormers is very time consuming because the roofers used over 100 nails per dormer to nail it together and to the roof. Gary had to pull them all out to put the shingles and the flashing under the dormers. We both heard the foreman tell the roofers to just tack the dormers in place, but apparentely they forgot. It is costing Gary a lot of time to take all those nails out with a claw hammer. He has five dormers to "un-nail".

The shop (where we do most of our living--except sleeping) has been very cold. Yesterday, Gary installed our old woodstove in the shop and now we aren't freezing. This is a picture of our first fire. It feels so much better in the shop with the woodstove blazing!

Here's the latest update from our door carver. We can't wait to see the finished product.