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This post is all about progress on our home.  Sharing the details to date. For those who care, are curious, and/or want to learn. Log Cabin Building 101 and then some. Let me start by telling you this.  This is no Little Cabin. We’re doing it all to code.  It’s solid, seemingly complicated and overkill at times, but it sure as heck is going to out last us all.  And boy-oh-boy are we learning along way.  Sometime more than I cared to or thought I needed to know.  I still have this thing about simple.  Funny thing is, elaborate and grande as it seems to us, it’s still so simple to some people’s standards for a high mountain, year-round full-time home for three.

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So, here it is.  Custom log home building at it’s funnest.  A family affair.  A home built by us, for us, with love.  Evolving…

In the meanwhile, it’s business as usual in the other cabins as the guest ranch is up and running, we’re camping out in the Little Cabin, and life is good.  Simple.  Well, sort of. Best not get me started…

Where were we last time I shared an update?  The ground was dug out, a level spot excavated, footer set and poured, stem walls formed, in-floor heating coils laid out and slab for the shop smoothed out. Then we set the floor joists…  All this just to get started and have a helluva crawl space.  Then again, I am looking forward to indoor plumbing once again, so whatever it takes, I guess.

Next, the sub-floor is laid out and oiled.

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Then it’s time for the logs.  First, we have to get them from our stock pile of those beetle kill trees we harvested from our land across the frozen river over winter.  Secret weapons include:  Lee’s borrowed crane, Bob’s new CAT, Todd and Barbara (seriously, where did you guys come from, and at just the right moment?), and my magnificent work crew (husband and son).

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Thanks, Ellen, for sharing the great perspective on that last shot!

Okay, so once the logs are up, then they get moved by (borrowed) crane to (borrowed) mill.

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From there, with help of the crane, these solid “logs” are put in place. Each one is milled two, three or four sided as need be.  We’re doing custom, traditional “butt and pass” log construction. Base logs average a whopping 16 inches plus wide.  We’ll be warm.

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And there you have it.  The base logs are set.  Walls are defined (of the first floor, at least). Time for movin’ on up!

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Really, I swear I do more than take pictures (and feed the crew).  No comments about the chicken legs, please.

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I can’t thank enough those who have shared so much with us already – their mill, their crane, their crane operating expertise (and great company), their support, encouragement and enthusiasm… but I will try: THANK YOU.

Now, onto raising the walls.  This is the fun part.  It’s all fun. The best part is simply being here together, working with the best work crew in the world.  My husband and son.

Not a bad place to work either.

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Oh, and one last note, speaking about growth and progress.  Rikki… Then and now…

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