Log Home Update: Part 56: Finishing for the winter (?)

Have I mentioned that we are building a log home? I know, posts on this topic have been scarce lately but that doesn’t mean that things haven’t been progressing. Everyone did take some time off between Christmas and New Year’s, but they’ve been here working like gangbusters since January 2.

Don, Adam and Dan did show up one day right after Christmas to weather proof the chimney. The exterior stone work will wait until spring arrives and the night time temperatures are more conducive to the mortar curing.

Adam went through the list of items (a very short list) that the building inspector wanted done. Most had to do with electrical outlets being GFI protected. Some we knew had to be done and a few we thought were okay. In any event it took him just half a day to knock those out.

Then there were the two big items on the list. The garage had to have dry wall installed and the basement stairs needed a railing. Adam and I tackled both those jobs. I helped install the sheetrock and then Adam did the spackle work and applied a coat of paint. The same got done to the exterior of the bathroom in the basement and the wall to the utility room. Only it was Don and I installing the dry wall (a.k.a. sheetrock) there while Adam was doing the spackling and painting in the garage.

Adam and I laid out and cut the materials for the hand rail going down into the basement. With the exception of one 2 x 4 we used left over materials from the exterior deck rail and the interior loft/stair rail. Troy came over on Saturday to do some work and helped mount the spindles and rail in place. Now that it is in, it makes the stairs themselves look, well, shabby.

Basement stairs.

While we were doing all that, Kyle and Dan worked on finishing the installation of the insulation (say that five times fast!) in the basement ceiling. This insulation will more or less force the heat from the radiant floor system upwards into the first floor. Secondarily, it will provide some sound barrier between the two floors.

Basement ceiling insulation.

Don, when not working to install drywall in the basement or 2 x 4 walls down there, went to work on the stone facing for the living room fireplace. He is using a cultured stone product from Owens-Corning that looks so real you have a difficult time picking out the few real stones that are interspaced. The “fake” stuff is made from lightweight concrete and is done in such a way that in the four boxes we opened for use on the fireplace there wasn’t a duplicate in the batch. The colors are varied, as are the shapes. It should be obvious that the smaller filler stones are (mostly) real, but even a few of the larger ones have been picked up around either his yard or mine and used because they have a nice color or shape and are the right thickness. The actual hearthstones will be real stone from around the yard placed in a bed of mortar.

Stone work on fireplace.

One day day's work to go.

An Owens-Corning product.

There’s still some trim to be done in the garage, the drywall over the fireplace and the basement wood stove to attach, but the work for the year is almost completed. The building inspector has given his OK and we should have a C of O in a day or two. Meanwhile Terry and I have been squatting here, with Don’s permission, since around the 21st of December. The bank inspector will be here on Tuesday and we should be switching over from a construction loan to a standard mortgage right about on schedule. There will be some work left for the spring, such as the stone on the chimney and the walk out basement front, a few retaining walls, staining the exterior of the logs, and installing gutters and down spouts. Money for those items will be put into an escrow account and will be released when the work is done in the spring.

Basement wood stove.