Where Have You Been?

I’ve had a lot of people write in lately, asking how our progress was moving along on our log home.

If you are new here: We had a house fire, were under-insured, decided to build our own home on a strict budget. We opted for log and 10 days after the logs arrived my husband (Eric Kleinoder) and I, (Laura Childs) had 95% of the logs in place, by our own hands.

We thought we’d have the house closed in by winter, but the snow hit and we were no where near done. The second floor and roof line slowed us down considerably and more, personal, tragedies hit our small family.

When you are a family hit by the loss of a house fire, you become more vulnerable than you can imagine. The first hit was believing that one person (a 19 year old man) had pure intention of helping us with the build and managed to pull the wool over our eyes for quite some time. We allowed him to stay in our home, paid him for his time working on the house and treated him like a son (Brandon Schmid).

In the end Brandon caused major disruption to our family as he preyed on the mind and body of our 14 year old daughter all the while sneakily undermining the family dynamic. I will not go into details here, but it took everything we had to un-brainwash his twisted view of life and get our daughter back. My advice to anyone in a situation after a house fire is to stay close to the people you know and don’t let any snakes into your home until you have healed from the tragedy.

Oddly enough, shortly after we got rid of this unstable male, our truck was keyed! I hear now that he’s onto another 14 year old. Just a sad little messed up drifter of a man-boy who will never amount to a damn thing.

It wasn’t long after we got this scoundrel out of our lives that my dear old Great Dane passed away. I took this personally and beared full guilt and shame for not trying harder to protect her and restore her health. This caused a month long depression where I could do little but function in a haze, my heart not in the game of life whatsoever. It was a short book (The Shack), a short reprieve (to Toronto) and a wedding (Ron Reise and Krista Kirtain) that eventually pulled me out of my funk and back on track with my work, my family, and back to building this house.

As of today, the roof is on (just siding to go on the gable ends and dormers) five windows are in, and interior staining is about 30% finished.

For many months now I have not liked this house – the work, the strain on all of us, the aching muscles and need for extra chiropractic visits and massages. We’ve had very little time for ‘play’ within our family and are constantly being asked by friends and family “Why haven’t you stopped in to visit lately?”

“Hmmm, seems we’re a little busy lately…”

However, this weekend, as the remaining bundles of shingles were removed from the roof top, as windows went in and the interior stain applied, the house became a labor of love again and we are all rejeuvenated.

Here is a quick snap of the interior walls with a coat of stain.

If you read earlier, the logs were packed with creosote soaked stickers (allowing space to cure and dry, but transfering their black marks deep into the logs in the process). To remove the marks and other marks when the roof hasn’t been closed in for months, a serious clean up is required. I opted for bleach but puritans would suggest other methods as bleach is hard on any organic surface. (See the marked logs and before and after bleach photos here.)

With hours/days of scrubbing, bleaching and rinsing and eventually finishing up with a light stain, I find the result inspiring and beautiful. As a result the house is starting to feel as if it was all worth it, once again.

Here’s another photo of logs, before and after bleach and staining…

Next, I’ll post some shots of the window installation and explain the steps involved as installing windows in log walls is a lot different than in a framed or brick construction.

And here is a video of the staining and layout just a few days later…(now showing on YouTube!)