Last Sunday was a blustery, grey, not-very-Spring day in Minnesota. Steve and I went for a drive, meandering up to see the log cabin that Paul built on the property last year and moved up to his parents’ lake property near Park Rapids. There have been an incredible number of hours of work put into that cabin, many by Amy and Kevin staining and staining and staining more wood. The kitchen is in, and all 2.5 bathrooms, and once the main pine flooring is installed, the bedrooms can be set up and it will be ready for guests. For now, they still stay in the basement when they go. When they move upstairs it will definitely be moving from true roughing it to real luxury.
The really cool thing right now is how the logs settle. Basically the whole top half of the house is still on these small braces all over the place, lifted about a foot off the bottom half of the house. As one part sinks down, Paul goes around and adjusts all the lifts. Slowly the whole house compresses and eventually it will be one sealed piece.
The place is gorgeous, but more than that, it’s an incredible achievement. Having built a house not just yourself from raw materials but from gigantic trees is something to ponder. Paul went to school in British Columbia to learn how to do this and spent a summer interning with a log home builder on the North Shore as well. He also has an electrician degree. The scale and detail of this project is astonishing. And of course Amy and Kevin get major credit for doing more staining and sealing than I hope ever to do in my whole life…
A picture does say a thousand words. Here are a before and after shot… (For more photos, click here.)
October 2008
