The progress of Xanadu

Here are some before and after pictures of what Art and I lovingly refer to as Xanadu. The before pictures were taken nearly a year ago, as we began the cleanup of this badly neglected log house. I think it's an astounding difference. This spring and summer we will finish the job. The logs still need their final coat of sealant and the top half of the house will get painted. The dark brown section is metal shingles and we will paint them a light brown (biscotti, I believe it's called). The ugly yellow roof, which is also metal, is going to be a gorgeous hunter green, to match the flashing that we put around the midsection. We did a little "test run" on the porch roof, so you can see how it will look. It was a LOT of work. All those logs were hand ground, then chinked, stained and bug sealed. We had to stop in September when it started to freeze outside. These first 2 pictures are of the east side, with a little of the north side (back porch).

















The next 2 pictures are of the south and east sides. You may notice the staircase in the after picture. We didn't intend to do that but when we were grinding the logs in that front corner of the veranda we found the logs completely rotted out with a huge ant nest inside. It was quite a dilemma until Art's brother, who just happens to be a log home builder came up with the solution of cutting away the damaged area and putting in the staircase. He also donated the lovely burls that we put in along the veranda to replace those posts. We may put burls under the veranda, too.















The next 2 pictures are of the south and west sides. Quite a vivid change!















And finally, the west side. I kind of like the difference between all the green of spring and the white of winter. The last picture was taken between Christmas and New Year's. Our friends, Mike and Barb Rockey were visiting. That is their truck and camper parked beside the house (see....we're not the only nuts who like to camp in winter). They were up in September, too, and helped tremendously with a lot of the work we were doing.
There was an equal amount of work done on the inside of the house, too, with all the logs being hand ground, chinked and stained. Later, I will post some of those pictures. I hope this helps a little bit for those who have been wondering what the heck we have been getting up to lately.