The Rest of the story...

Okay, I'm guilty of failing to keep all you loyal cyber log home fans abreast of our latest progress with the home. I had this naive idea that I could maintain a web site, raise two children, work a full 40 hour a week job, put in another 10-20 hours a week consulting, build a log home, and take naps on Sunday afternoons all at the same time. I'm good at "multitasking" but unfortunately "Cabin Fever" ended up at the bottom of the priority list. My apologies to all of you that have faithfully visited this web site for updates and found things, gasp..... dare I say it.... static.

Now for the Catsup, err I mean catch-up... Our builder completed the outside logging and we are really pleased with the result. Here are a couple of shots.

In January 1997 I installed the Kitchen cabinets and our builder returned to finish logging the inside of the house on the first floor. Our wood flooring and finish plumbing was installed and I installed most of the electrical fixtures.

In February 1997 we had our home inspected by the bank appraiser. We had heard horror stories of appraisers who would nit-pick every item on there "punch" list and tell you to get it completed before they would approve the house for a loan. After you fixed everything on their list they would come back and create a whole new list of punch items for you to deal with. This routine sometimes forces people to extend their construction loan several times before getting final approval from an appraiser. There were two things that concerned me; 1) The outside of our chimney chase was not complete, but we felt we could claim that was weather related and 2) The inside of the chimney chase was not complete. For the inside, Margaret applied pre-cast stone to just above the mantle. The remaining 18 feet I covered with $20 of paneling, with the intention of ripping it off and finish rocking later. It was ugly, but hey, they couldn't say it wasn't done. It turned out the bank appraiser was a nice guy and we passed the inspection without a hassle. In the end of February we rolled the construction loan over to a mortgage. YES!!!!

In March 1997 we worked on trim, varnishing, staining, ceiling fans, bathroom hardware, baseboard trim, more electrical, Margaret finished rocking the inside of the fireplace chase, and we have generally enjoyed living and working in our home without the pressure of deadlines. Click here for some indoor shots:

By September 1997, we were working on landscaping and exterior log staining, (I used the Velvet Oil brand of stain). We also finally had our house warming party. We gave out over 120 invitations, I don't know exactly how many guests showed up but we certainly had a house full.

Many people have asked us if it was worth all the trouble. For us, this has been the completion of a 25 year old dream. Most definitely, it was worth it. I wish you all the best of luck in achieving you log home dreams.

Peace,
Joost & Margaret Korpel

Back to Cabin Fever home page