it got crazy busy- which means prgress.

I'll catch yall up on developments soon. meanwhile, anyone know where to find measured drawings of Gustav Stickly exterior corbels?

Window Coverings at SunlandHomeDecor.com

Window Coverings at SunlandHomeDecor.com

Squeaky wheels some times do get the grease

arell

but other times fall of the axles and rot by the trail. fortuneately, we are blessed to have a builder with some personal standards and a conscience and Willie Fhas responded to our concerns about the set of the replacement logs. As i write he stands- chainsaw ready- adjusting the cuts on the dove tails that make the house' corners. The walls look uniforma again after 3 days of cutting and changing a few logs out. More later- but it looks like we are goning to make it after all. And the electrical is near ready for the county inspectors, plumbing too.

and the thing had got off to such a good start back in early spring

Then at the end of July, Willie Farrell the contractor disappeared. it was 3 months and a week between the times he set foot on our place and even stopped returning calls o answering emails. In fact, his email account disappeared. His "carpenter" Matt and the helper Zach (aka Beevis and Butthead) appeared to busy themselves painting things and doing make work in the other house on the proerty but when i caught them painting trim on windowsx that were to be removed i hunted down the missing builder. It went south fast- the guy turned Beevis and Butthead loose on that lull with about 3 hours of training. Not only could they not select which logs to insert in the holes they wre making in the walls, they couldnt set them properly and (as any utterly incompetent carpenter will do--) kept on cutting and cutting. Basically, the house is ruined. Willie's business Celtic Log Homes has disappeared as a financial and legal entity in his efforts to avoid attempts to collect a multi-million dollar civil judgement against him, so i dont know who to thank. Since I
i can not email the man and he is loathe to communicate in writing anymore, I thought i would share with yall some of he texts I have sent him in the past few days:

To Willie Farrell
Why were logs over windows flanking fireplace on North wall 1st floor cut completly thru then stuck back in place? You sat here with me Saturday discussing at length how we would not have transoms inserted- but Beavis and Butthead seemed to have other plans
I am furious on close examination Of the destruction done in the last several weeks and you weren't here!!!!
You sent those boys out to hack random sections out of my house and are personslly responsible for the damage done. Have you even inventories the old logs they riunt? The smashed casework? The mess. You assured us that you would be personally repairing that mess and I really hope you have locatedsuitable timber. See I heard all if this from you late summer befoore you vanished. Only the painters and the wreckage you people did here is new. We need to see some positive results here

Sent from my iPhone
To Willie Farrell
Why were logs over windows flanking fireplace on North wall 1st floor cut completly thru then stuck back in place? You sat here with me saturday discussing at length how we would not have transoms inserted- but Beavis and Butthead seemed to have other plans
I am furious on close examination Of the destruction done in the last several weeks and you weren't here!!!!
You sent those boys out to hack random sections out of my house and are personslly responsible for the damage done. Have you even inventories the old logs they riunt? The smashed casework? The mess. You assured us that you would be personally repairing that mess and I really hope you have locatedsuitable timber. See I heard all if this from you late summer befoore you vanished. Only the painters and the wreckage you people did here is new. We need to see some positive results here

We were unimaginably generous in our offer of a personal leave to let you get your life together. On umyour say donors than $30Kworth of skilled labor is booked to rough in inand paiiny( what a joke) a house with at least 25 % of its walls missing. You havent been back to get counts or anything Anyone else i expect would be running to complete his minimal obligation and leave this but we aint seen u siince you contrite smiling exit Saturday. 4 pm and i will come to you .t

To Willie Farrell
Why were logs over windows flanking fireplace on North wall 1st floor cut completly thru then stuck back in place? You sat here with me saturday discussing at length how we would not have transoms inserted- but Beavis and Butthead seemed to have other plans
I am furious on close examination Of the destruction done in the last several weeks and you weren't here!!!!
You sent those boys out to hack random sections out of my house and are personslly responsible for the damage done. Have you even inventoried the old logs they riunt? The smashed casework? The mess. You assured us that you would be personally repairing that mess and I really hope you have locatedsuitable timber. See I heard all if this from you late summer befoore you vanished. Only the painters and the wreckage you people did here is new. We need to see some positive results here
/.

Sent from my iPhone

To painters

I keep forgetting you during daytime. Sorry. There are major problems with the new construction on 10 Huckleberry Mounain Rd and until I see the ruined logs replaced and some productive action on the project, there is nothing to say. It's a waste of both our time to make plans to seal chink and stain walls that to date exist only in the builder's expressed intentions. I expect a change by the start of the second week in December at the latest. I guess you saw the carpenters had done a good deal of painting over the summer. If your painters do carpentry I expect yalll can stArt right away.
Sent from my iPhone

Willie may not even have a computer.
His address is 5800 Ashville Highway, Pisgah Forest , NC 28768



*** if any reader can detect result of the $8000 were shocked to get charged for "aging and weathering" of new logs then please let us know . I cant see it in the logs or pictures.

Genuine Antique Lighting: Current Inventory

Genuine Antique Lighting: Current Inventory

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Genuine Antique Lighting: 2 Pairs of Double Arts

Genuine Antique Lighting: 2 Pairs of Double Arts & Crafts Sconces

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the thing is rolling now

Logs have come and are being lifted into existing walls while a big lull with a hydraulic boom holds the house up as the guys prize the rotted sills out from under thebuildin. Its cool. Its a mess too- the place now clearly evokes what Capability Brown called being in "Mud and Mortar" transformed great estates. The gentry typically stayed in town to avoid the mess. A gifted tree man- Isaac Jones out of Brevard NC- felled the huge tulip poplar dying a slow death from septic installation in its root zone; a pair of infest Tsuga carolinana, and sundry others- including a black cherry we'll get to later. the great change tho came from downing the multi-trunked pair of Tsuga canadensis and dead red oak that separate the cabin from the street and parking area (and everything else ). I caught the effect tonight on the way out: I'd never seen the little house before really: what do yall think?

I'll give you a taste of some plans Shannon and I are making for the front door:

Oh sh*t

I am sitting in a tangle of traffic around a huge accident on I 385 outside Greenville SC where I hired a lawyer for speeding tickets today and just hung up with the lead carpenter Matt up at the cabins. He should have left 2 hours ago we had a big day with the arrival PDA huge lull with extendable boom that will hold the house up while the sill logs are removed and replaced. The logs don't arrive tillweds so we took advantage of a free day with the equipment to move all the large trunks that are to be milled on site and clear out the area to have a staging zone for the lifting equipment. The tree tops and brush too small to become lumber were piled and burned (apparently with a healthy mix of scrap lumber) and Matt wanted to share the news that the water is off on the whole place except for the leak gushing from somewhere under the shed's floor. I told the to call 9-1-1. Then learned that the burnn piles are mixed. See- I got warned earlier gthus year that each single item that wasn't grown and cut on the site subjects the owners to a fine not to exceed $25000 per article. I'm glad he ignored my initial command to call the fire dept. Matt a Zach think this is a $2-$3M brushfire by those punitive federal enviromental regs.
Tune in tomorrow for the ecitibg conclusion of this cliff hanger!

Its a good thing that these blog sites dont have due dates for posts

We're at a funny time here in the rebuilding of the cabins on Huckleberry Mountain. All the work's gone into some kind of reverse and last week i had Matt and Zach full time for the week in the little house i am staying in at the moment. They've been addressing wsome of the more glaring issues of the cabin from my 22 page punch list (It would have been much longer than 22 pages but that's where i just stopped on the realization that the builder, Todd Moss, would never see this document.) Its one thing to make a mistake or two- its another to do stuff like dig down to crawlspace vents because there is not positive drainage. Yes, they really did that. Its discouraging to have to send about 20% of the coast of a rebuild or remodel to then is shoddy or dangerous work left by a contractor. Write it all down beforehand and at least have a contract that carries with it incentives and penalties for the good the bad and the ugly. And put these penalties in the terms of the contract- like a charge against builders who run too slow or have to redo stuff or whatever. There are courts happy to offer a judgementfor the hapless home owner, but i dont know of any states that have a good means of seeing the judgements get paid. Only child support and taxes can garnish wages, so its really better to put all these expctations out in the begining rather than fight it out with a judge at the end of the project.

So- we are stalled out on the work at 10 Huckleberry because we dont have logs to complete the repair of the walls. One would think that for a builder responsible for repair and rebuilding of a historic log cabin with serious rot issues in its wals, that securing logs would be one of the first things to nail down. Here's the honest mistake that's sent the crew crowding into the 330 sq ft next door: Our builder had found a source for logs and i think one used in the past. He didnt go and see the timbers until 2 weeks ago when we needed them and they were rotting out on the dirt in Waynesville, NC and unusable. At this point i'd like to give a gold star to a specialty lumber yard in Sylva, NC Vintage Beams and Timbers- we cant afford their near $800 for a singly 20' length of red oak or whatever it is, but they were helpful a courteoous and didnt play "guess the cost" which is a favorite passtime for some vendors in these parts. It's OK- actually I'm sort of pleased since usually, we find the materials are defective on after we paid for them. And it has got me some shelves up here that i really needed and a bunch of other little things like base boards round the whole room and some help on the finish here. and some of this help is pretty involved. Yall check out my little shelves stuck up under the rafters of the loft where i sleep: all i did was hang a 2"x6" board but i got a place to keep my pintos and all the little doodads and knickknacks that accumulate thru life:

The biggest repair to the restoration o 38 Huckleberry Mountain is resetting all five windows in the original log-walled cabin. Moss Log Homes had a bizarre approach to fenestration when they completed this house. First, all opening were trimmed out with chainsaws leaving the logs' ends dangling in the holes and shifting the whole length. A frame rough sawn 4"x4" lumber was then nailed into the openings and the case work was then set into the 4"x4". For some reason- all the exterior trim on the doors and windors on this house is made up of 2"x and 1"x pine- though one of the last reciepts i saw on this job was fora huge amount of ough sawn 6"x and 8"x lumber at a cost of close to $4200. It had been bought for triming out doors and windows. Anywsay, the trouble with the Moss Log Home windows here is that they had no way to really made a tight seal between the OUTSIDE edge of the 4"x4" frame and the cut ends of the wall's logs. With out even a board and sheet of tar paper to make even a gesture of weather proofing, its pretty colds and breezy down stars on most chilly night and they are getting chilly now. And one can see daylight all around these edges here- despite the copious amounts of brown caulking the Moss crew applied to these joints. What a mess. There's one double hung window in the little house and its wasnt even set straight: i cant open it properly and even the screen was made to fit a badly lopsided opening so it reads like a figure on a geometry test from he out side. Its pouring here, and i got doubts the guy willcome to do this but my fingers are certainly crossed.

What's starting to feel backwards is that I am spending a lot of time now on the tweeking and of things like a wainscote of old barn siding that a friend had made int a kitchen and then gave to me when his manly slabs of pine were banished by a new wife in favor of something more feminine and laminated i think. We had a truck go down to my folks in Chapel hill and haul out everything it could. Most parents dont have stacks of red cedar trunks, cypress shiplap siding, 2"x 8" and 2"10" rouhgsawn and such but mom does and its all in the drive along with a bunch of peeled pine logs that were rafters in a an old tobacco barn. Lots of nails to pull and boards to sort if the rain would let up. Ever since Hurricane Fran jammed 27 trees into the roof there in 1996, mom and dad have been in mud and mortar, as Capability Brown like to say. I hauled a bonch of stuff back besides boards too: a great old medecine cabinet i had hung at one of our rentals in Durham, and a copper eagle weathervane. There were some surprises too: mom has more rungs than the law allows so it was nice to grab a stack of dhurries and even some real Navajo weavings and old hooked patterns from granny. Sure beats a lot of Olefin melting under my dropped cigarettes. These had all been cleaned and stored for a decade and were in fine shape under the wrapping the cleaner shipped them home in.. I did get a company called Chem Dri in here to steam clean the 3 pieces of upoholster furniture and they did great. The old blue velvet chairs from Council on Aging's local thrift shop look new- or at least blue. they had begun to assume the ai of camoflage under all the coffee spills.

Tin, Trim and TSP

after more than a week of torrential rains here, work resumed on the roof at 10. the guys had spent the wet days attacking the Drifwood color oil stain a previous tenant had slathered all over the first floor and some of he second. (yes, they ran out and just left a line on nothing on an upstairs wall.) So, my big contribution to the work has been attempting to choose a shade of green for the trim on the grey siding and logs. The printer who does the color chips for Lowe's Stores Valspar paint and stain is useless. I don't think a single chip was true to the actual tint. I'd hoped to match the green trim on the little cabin next door i stay in, but the color was discontinued after i got it in 2006 and isn't really mixing up right. I hope today's effort got it right. It's sort of a long shot though, as two out of the 3 handy 8 oz sample cans brought home bore a "matte" label and contained gloss paint. The color on the left hand window's upper right side here is the front runner so far and best match yet to the old green on the little house. We'll see how it looks dry.

the good news around finishes on the place is that Matt and Zack have succeeded at removing the buld of the dated driftwood wal color on the whole cabin. The best part was that i had feared we'd turn the house into a tinder box taking off that stain. We all bet that only soaking wall in mineral spirits would get it off. Not so: 1/2 cup Trisdium Phosphate to a 2.5 gallon spray tank and ten percent bleach lifted it off like magic in one application or the most part. A day after it was hosed away and left to dy, the stair corner has a coating of that greeny grey mold like like a big country ham. Not sure why the bleach didnt knock all those spores out.the wood is fresh and clean with some sort of light pickled effect where the stain was real thick but those vestigal bits are part of the house's story and i can live with it sealed up under a lot of tung oil. The best part of the walls on log i think is the handiwork on them: adze marks, old thin holes from cut nails, different tree species stand in sharp relief the grain now liberated from the stain. We will add our own chapter soon and replace four lower logs where we seal an old doorway at foot of the stair with what I am told will be seasoned oak. And all of the old cement chink is out of the walls. Its now working like a poor man's rip rap on an unseen stream bank. A friend from town who does preservation and restoration contracting came out today and helped me come up with a rough in for the bath upstairs and using his great knowledge of the NC Building code and we are ready to roll. any one who sees this know where i can get two 12' and two 17' long sections of salvaged 4" half round guttering with brackets? I need it quick.

and the little cabin is no longer topless. Tomorrow morning it will gain the last section of ridge, made out of section of the terne roofing. just in time for cool wet weather that is October in the south-- even here.

Some Saturday reminiscences on septic tanks

The guys have gone for the weekend and if i climb the heap of equipment dumped in the shed's doorway, I can get at least my pump sprayer to hit some of the weeds out front with something lethal. I wish i could get the thing mulched. Need to get busy with the stones I had a guy dump all around the dive here soon and some other lansdscaping i dont really have the energy for doing. But Labor Day is past now and summer is really over here so it's time to get the place set down for winter I guess.
There's a tangle of Japanese privet out under the big tulip poplar that has a big rose bush climbing out the middle of the woody weed. Its like 'Dr Van Fleet'- i would have called it 'New Dawn' earlier this year- with its flush of familiar shell pink small double blooms, but its never thrown any more flowers after late May so i think it has to be the Dr. I reckon the next time a back hoe's on site they may as well dig out the whole mess. I had entertained thoughts of working the rose up the the tree trunk and slowly killing off the privet, but its not really worth the effort for a rose that's not in a good spot anyway and doesnt re-bloom. Anyway, there's enough stuff in pots here i want to grow off that needs planted and another shovel has walked away it seems so better to wait around and think for now.

I keep thinking of the first week in the place back in '04. After 5 days occupancy the septic tank was backing up into the drains in the second floor bath in 10. I couldn't believe I had filled a 1000 gal tank and opened he yellow pages to AAA Septic Service. Now, I made efforts to learn the location of the tank from the seller Kim Watkins and her agent Apple Valley
Realty on Chimney Rock Rd. Both had assured me they had no idea where it was and implied i neednt worry. with foul black water filling my tub I called the Watkins woman again from a number in information. apparently she was off spending the proceeds of the sale. But Troy the septic pumper at AAA soon arrived. I told him i had no idea where the tank was, but he shocked me with the announcement that he had been on the property a month ago to pump the tank and showed me where the thing sat at the corner of the house. Not a great beginning here but we have persisted.

Our little cabin compound now boasts an elaborate 2 tank system that pumps effluent up ont0 the vacant lot we own. I was told that Henderson Count, NC had no regulation of any sort of water or septic systems until 1977 and seeing the kitchen sin and washers draining directly into the yard, I believed that. Apparently the county felt a need to show that its now tough on water matters and an erratically enforced set of water and septic regulations. On paper, these codes were diligently enforced and awe were sent back at least twice to have an engineer submit revised septic plans for the property. In the County offices the ditch my neighbors heap with 'landscape debris' (garbage) is a public waterway and treated in the county's halls lie some fragile coastal estuary. Why not? They dont pay the engineer to draw up suitable plans-- its on the home owner. Now- installation was another story and after finding a tank sitting next to the outdoor fireplace in unoccupied number 10, as well as half out of the ground on one trip I made back here, the thing was eventually relocated well inside the set back from the water way and mirabile dictu it passed the county's inspection process just fine.

Apparently here in Henderson County- its not how you follow the code but who your daddy had babies with that will make or break your construction plans and woe to any "outsider' who might buy property and attempt to improve it. I guess we should have stayed in one of the gated communities with all the seniors from FL. Funny how the septic sits in the very place we were told over and over it could not be and the AC receptacles in the little house are full of combustibles that even a blind inspector would have failed and the house didnt even have positive drainage when it got a CO. I guess i ought go try and marry into one of the inspectors families to expedite things here.

The roof is about on

and for the at we have used salvaged tin ( or terne) roofing pulled off some old barn. Terne is a ot dipped sheet steel, origianlly lead coated, then zinc. The roofing on 10 was actually painted and doesn't have the rust marks the roofs on the other structures here do, but its a pretty close match.
The paint will wait until the roofs up and then the carpenters can focus on work insde. Its been cool and damp since mid-afternoon yesterday, but I expect they'll be back to finish up the roof today. then the HVAC will go in. I'm off to find a fine art metal restorer in fletcher NC called Brightwork. I suppose if the sun comes back out then I ought to see to spraying some of the weeds.

HAVENT LOOKED AT THE BLOG FOR A WEEK OR SO

We got a really good bid for the HVAC therre and will go ahead with a small capacity heat pump and ducts. For some bizarre reason, they began the painting tho the chinking's in place styill and to my knowledge we did not have a satisfactory means to get this 1970's 'Driftwood' stain off the interior walls. I been running around over fixtures and such and a horse issue. Had a 2.5 week rodeo trip to WA and OR cancel on me yesterday do i guess I better pick up effort on the houses here. Got an issue with upstairs bath that presses on me today. And if any of yall know where to get old doors stripped nears Asheville NC, let me know. I got little sconces for the fireplace here and a cool drop fixture for kitche and baths. Really premature i guess. Not even sure we'll repair this wonderful fireplace. Actually, i have little i want to wrote of here today- but wanted to resume the blog so that's one goal met.

Finishes, fixtures and other details

Since TNT apparently only shows Titanic over and over this summer, I got no more excuses left to keep from staining the new trim in 38. At least this morning I'll throw a coat of stain on the wood for color. It turns out that Minwax English Chestnut is a perfect color match for this very expensive Sikkens Log Cabin brown that Moss Log Homes used here. The Sikkens is likely a good product- derived from a line of marine varnishes-- i know it comes in a glossy and matte formulation and despite my insistence on matte, we got the shiny one and it was thinly sprayed in one coat here so the total result looks pretty crummy. I got around 7-8 half-used $70/gallon cans in the shed here and no way to tell which is which so I'll start with the minwax color and add a top coat of one of the less dried out Sikkens dregs. Next week I'll collar Shannon or Erick to hit the floor with a belt sander and throw some of the Waterlox tung oil finish on that. I love this Waterlox as deeply and passionately as I have come to hate all polyurethane finishes for floors and furniture. We were so impressed with the promise of a durable plastic shield for wood floors that folks go carried away-- and having lived with polycoated floors that do get scratched and chipped and need thsat whole finish removed to recoat them, I wont have it in my life any moe. Really, isn't it better to use an oil or wax that can simply be reapplied and buffed back to life than to sand off the whole finish to deal with a scratch? And anyone can apply these finishes with out special skill or tools. Waterloxx is great stuff really- long lasting and truly water proof and you just pour it on and even it up with a rag or applicator pad- none of the troublesome pools and puddles that always vexed me using gallons of sticky liquid plastics. It may be my own laziness showing too, but have got more and more conscious of how things like scuffs, scratches and marks add character and age to a building. Seeing us try and marry new materials to old one in these cabins (especially 10, which is ca. 1750) its the absence of any kind of patina to the new stuff that makes the rebuilt and restored parts stick out most sorely. So, i don't worry about scratches now. I used an old claw foot tub in the bath at 38 as it is: that means layers fo paint on the exterior and that the minor stains and chips on the enamel stay. When i checked into recoating the thing, I found its not possible to actually have a tub blasted and new enamel sprayed and baked back on. Instead it gets basically spray pained with a thick layer of white acrylic that has a five year life span. why bother?

We settled on a reasonable heat pump and AC unit for 10 yesterday and it should fit nicely under the back porch. Now I'm free to locate lights and receptacles since we have checked the locations of all the stuff like a range and dryer for any problems with the NC Building Code and I can think of stuff like lights- which is a lot more fun that painting. We got a wonderful art glass pendant that has no damage anywhere on it that was discovered in my mom's garage. Its 19" in diameter and pretty big and fancy for a kitchen but will likely hang over a table in 10 West Huckleberry. The electrician and I pondered using it over the stair landing but after sleeping on it that seems risky- plus, anyone one the first floor will only be looking up into ts bulbs, so what's the point. Its a cool light tho: the glass is set in what looks like bronzes at first glance but is actually painted pressed tin. I think it was married to another lights ceiling plate- this one is solid copper with a nice bead cast round the edge. Got some other lantern type sconces at the good lighting store in town and 3 lesser ones on the porch I need to make up my mind about. Since we are resetting the unpeeled poplar logs that were joists for the second floor onto the ceiling, I see no point putting any flush fixtures on the ceiling between the logs- same goes for a fan: its too cramped and low for stuff hanging over head. y'all can oooh and aah over the art glass drop light while i stain trim now.

Baseboards for a log wall

We kept at the work this week and the guys made much progress on number 10- the inside framing is done now and one can walk through the rooms and we are nearly ready to get the old chink out and the first wiring in. I spent the week running around the Blue Ridge trying to find folks to repair salvaged wall sconces and and fixtures i had accumulated over the years that finally have a home. Also, nothing belongs in old cabins like rush seat rockers and I took an old fiddle back and a great big walnut slat back rocker in for new seat. I spent a couple days looking online and after no luck googling local artisans, it occurred that maybe practitioners of the traditional Appalachian craft of caning might not keep websites. so a trip to the caning supply store in Asheville yielded 8 numbers off their bulletin board and one of those numbers was still good. The rockers went to Born Again Furniture Restorers on Swanannoa River Rd in Asheville. I was impressed with the work that i saw waiting for pick up and delighted when i learned that hey would make new rush seats for only $70 and $80. If you cant find a caner in your area, its almost worth shipping to NC.

When a long counter was removed from under the stairs in my little cabin's kitchen, so that i had room to stand in front of the stove, the AC receptacles had to be moved down to the base of the wall and the wire that fed them hid behind door trim. Fortunately the door need new trim anyway to accommodate some sealing. The receptacles were a simple matter to move as well, but allow me to see a nice illustration of he difference between the quick and dirty job done on this cabin and the work of real craftsmen like the Breedlove brothers who are doing the carpentry work on 10 for Celtic Log Homes. Anyone ever wonder how to fit something like a base board against an irregular surface like a wall of peeled pine logs? One solution was to fit the baseboard to fit the one level surface: the floor. In the first picture, y'all can see the space at between the to[ of he base board and the wall. This was done through whole house and, yes, its full of saw dust and other stuff that just don't come out. Besides it has a sort of sloppy unfinished look- but it does safely cover wiring. It wasnt one of the things that brought a smile to my lips when saw the 'finished' cabin, but it was not dangerous or inconvenient and became one of those defects we resign ourselves to simply live with.

The second image shows the baseboard that Erick constructed on Friday for the repair to the kitchen area in 38. Its a nice, finished looking and functional bit of carpentry and fits snug against the log wall's chinking. The carpenter accomplished this end by simply using a second board to cap the one on the floor-- and what a difference this little detail makes. This same attention to detail was carried to some simple wood medallions to accomodate the little spot lights from Lowes' lighting aisle in the kitchen. I had told the first build Todd Moss that i didn't want a lot of elaborate detail on the interior, but i had never meant that to be interpreted as not to finish or measure what was built. many of the problems n the little house here are the result of a simple lack of oversight on our part. It never hurts to ask a builder "how is this going to work?" or "is that really finished?" if you aren't happy with something.

More on 10 West Huckleberry-- walls and chink

Work continues in anticipation of the electrical rough in in a week. Got the appliances "placed" with chalk marks on the floor and more graffiti to denote lights fixtures and extra AC receptacles. Am putting a full-size stacked washer/dyer in the upstairs bath to free up kitchen floor space. Unlike a stick built project, electric service (and plumbing, and even some HVAC) goes between the logs and then chinked in, so its invisible, but requires careful thought before hand. So, the old cement chinks coming out, then we got to clean and seal the logs before the new synthetic chink goes in. Unfortunately, someone used Cabot's Driftwood oil stain liberally inside the walls and we are hoping that we can get some of it off. the build wants to grind them down to unfinished wood, but doing so would lose the wonderful patina of the 1750's adze cut chestnut so am crossing my fingers and mixing up a lot of trisodium phosphate (TSP). I'm big on patina- i dont care how many times you hit something with a chain or wire or finish nails- nothing will duplicate the wear of the centuries and the hands of man that made it. Time takes time. For preservation purposes, chinking is deemed a finish- so anything goes as far as choice of chink. One good thing in the little cabin here (38) is the sand colored Permachink used in the walls. Synthetic chinks like this have higher R-value and while it takes them years to harden past the consistency of stiff toothpaste, they stick top the logs for the duration. that's important. another source of water damage on 10 was the cement chink had begun to protrude from the walls making each chink joint a little collection trough that funneled moisture into each log below. All cement mortar type chink will eventually do this as wood expands and contracts thru the seasons.

Now the finish in a cabin is much cleaner and nicer if you seal or stain the walls BEFORE they are chinked- so I'm thinking finishes his week. The finish is 38 West Huckleberry done by Todd "it don't show from MY house" Moss is pretty dismal. A good product from Sikkens marine varnishes was thinly sprayed and rubbed around the board and batten stick built additions there. Lots of mark on the chinks from touching up and of cpurse the rough sawn board/battens didn't take the finish even at all. Somehow, Moss Log Homes
was unable to actually get the Permachink into the houses corners either- leaving the biggest no-no of all at each corner of the house: caulk. NEVER caulk over chinking- it wont hold up and its looks so amateurish. Y'all can ponder that for the rest of the weekend.

Number Ten: the bigger cabin

Work resumed on the interior here today and we are removing t he stair to configure it so a half bath can fit beneath it. No way did I want the only toilet in the house accessed thru my second floor bedroom. This house was literally rotting away before Willie Farrell (Celtic Log Homes) of Brevard, NC took over the project. Its sat 8" above the ground. A concrete patio and other 1970's 'improvements' such as a vestibule with its roof pitched don into the chinked wall had all turned into watery weapons against the structure. The patio in particular did a lot of damage when the gutters failed and hen rather than soakng into the round every drop of water off the roof got splashed against the wall. The sill logs sand the course above them were moist chestnut mush-- yes the entire structure is 14"-18" chestnut logs. Before we met Willie, we had actually explored selling the thing to companies that offer antique wood flooring: they offered an average of $15/board foot for the house. The only other serious contractor who looked at it had wanted to pull the whole thing down and re-erect it with new logs. now- this is a 1750 structure moved to the site in the 1930's and there's a patina to 18th century adze-cut logs that really cant be duplicated. Also, a tear down would have added many months and thousands of $ to this project. Farrel offered a brilliant solution: he when learned i wanted to take out the 6'9" ceiling upstairs and open that room up to the trusses- he hit upon the idea of jacking the house on cribbing, removing the rotten lower portion and building a block foundation with a fieldstone veneer; then move the floors UP inside the structure while the walls remain in place. His masons duplicated the look of the arts and crafts stone chimney perfectly and the plan has worked brilliantly. there's a proper 30" crawlspace now, with room for HVAC, sand the walls are dry.

I have a friend visiting who is one of those treasured house guests who love doing work around an old house and new garden, so i'm spending more time outside this week than in here blogging. If only he wasnt so allergic to poison ivy................

Landscape for the cabins

It's a warm sunny Blue Ridge Saturday and am chipping away on the landscaping here. The 2 cabins sit on 2.97 acres. there were actually 3 but all that is left of the 3rd is its chimney and foundation stones which i hope to harvest and recycle as steps. Am cutting up hosta and such and setting them in a bench cut just made above the smaller cabin. Rather than leave positive drainage around the house, Moss Log Homes (you'll hear more on them) simply dug holes to uncover crawlspace vents. About ten months after the construction was 'finished' i noticed tremendous wicking of moisture on the walls and saw that the 80 year old thin concrete slab that is my porch had suddenly begun to crack. Emergency excavation revealed wrapped pipe simply set into the clay and it didn't empty anywhere. The new contractor took care of it and did it right. Water is the real enemy here. its a complex grade and the structures sit down hill. Am just planting to hold the cuts together right now. And spraying kudzu. The place was covered with this hideous and scary fast growing vine and i chip away at it. Fortunately Roundup mixed at 3 times label strength and a shot of BLUE Dawn dish soap knocks it back a bit. It don't die easy tho. You can see some damage to the stuff in lower pic. Its really fibrous stems are hard to cut- another escaped exotic that ravages our land. Apparently the huge starchy roots are the source of true tempura on Nippon so maybe the only way to be free of this pest is to eat it...might not be so bad--kudzu one redeming feature to my mind is its late season bloom with a scent indistinguishable from grape bubble gum.

Entry One

I'm posting here on a social network site tho am through with internet socializing. It hasnt ever worked out. But i need a blog site to tell this on going story on houseblogs.net swo here 't is.

This is the story of 2 old log cabins bought cheap in 2004--- a total impulse purchase. I AM FINALLY LIVING IN THE SMALLER ONE. That's a long story.

Tthe little houses where part of the Minnehaha arts colony here that existed thru the 1930's to the early fifies. It was held together buy the vision and work of a lady named Evelyn Haynes- about whom i know little except i found a box of her canceled checks in the attic of the bigger cabin and i know she pretty much held the colony together. It didn't really survive her passing, but is amazingly intact: i believe there still stand about 24 of the original one room colony cabins on his mountain.

I am in one of them now- its a 13' square room of southern yellow pine logs built with no bath or real kitchen and only a loft for a bed room. The other cabin (which i think was a least a summer home for Ms. Haynes is a 1750 Kentucky style one and a half story structure built of chestnut and moved here from the neighboring mountain Bear Waller when the colony was realLy swinging in the mid to late 1930's.

So this is a story of creation, recreation, restoration and research. Like any home building story its a story of hopes and dreams- both realized and revised.....and a story of shameless greed and thievery as well. I hope at the least it will serve as a resource for others in this area shopping for contractors or tackling the work themselves. As my legal disclaimer: the names of of people and products i'll name freely speak solely to my personal experiences here and my living in he midst of their work. When i tell you about the guy who truly left no corner uncut here- its just what I see in my house- i don know about the rest of his jobs. I'll close this first entry with plug for the National Parks Services fine series of Preservation Briefs:

Preservation Brief Number 26: The Preservation and Repair of Historic Log Buildings
http://www.nps.gov/history/HPS/TPS/briefs/brief26.htm