Expanding a log home is a different proposition from adding on to a conventionally framed house. The walls are structural, the materials have to harmonize, and the new roof has to meet the old one cleanly. Some owners find their needs are better served by adding a separate structure to expand a weekend home, while […]
An existing log home close to a city offers the best of both worlds: quiet and seclusion during the week, with restaurants, schools, and jobs a short drive away. One Connecticut family searched for months before finding a hand-hewn log home five minutes from town, tucked behind evergreen trees with no neighbors in sight. Buying
Three older log homes, each with a different history, got a new lease on life when their owners decided to improve on the past rather than start anew. One Montana home built of hand-peeled larch logs in the 1990s gained new flooring, cabinetry, and a reorganized seating plan. A dogtrot cabin in the woods saw
A log cabin built in 1979 sat on five acres of Vermont countryside with a pond, a rock wall, and logs that had not seen a fresh coat of finish in decades. The interior was sound, but the exterior told a different story: gray, chalky wood, faded stain, and a concrete foundation in need of
Renovating a log home is a multi-year project. The four-year transformation of a North Berwick, Maine property shows what a committed family can change in that time: the homeowners moved from Massachusetts to be near children and grandchildren, bought a precut kit log home that needed updating, and then spent four seasons on the yard
A 70-acre tract in western North Carolina came with a surprise: a cramped mid-century Dutch Colonial sat where the owners wanted a log home. Instead of tearing it down, they kept the old house, cleared the surrounding trees, and uncovered a view of the Blue Ridge mountains in the process. The finished property combines the
Antique log cabins survive for centuries when the right conditions hold. A cabin built in the 1820s in the Allegheny Mountains near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently began its third life: after decades in the woods, a previous owner had it moved and reassembled in 2006 beside Center Hill Lake in Tennessee. The owners modernized the appliances,
Buying a washer and dryer looks like a simple two-box decision until the room, the hookups and the household get involved. Capacity, footprint, fuel type and venting all interact, and a machine that fits one house can be a poor fit for another. Start with the room and the household rather than the brand, and
An older log home can be restored to full use, but the work starts long before the first coat of finish. Owners who take on a cabin that has sat empty, or passed through a bank takeover, typically find that the visible wear is the smallest part of the problem. The approach that works is
Small cabins have a way of growing on their owners, and sometimes that means growing in size. A 400-square-foot redwood retreat built in the 1940s spent decades as a four-season getaway before a rotting foundation forced a hard decision: repair the old structure or start fresh. The owner chose to rebuild, commissioning a 1,125-square-foot full-scribe
