The Koenig Family Log Blog

We are now 99.9% Complete and Living our Dream… “The Surreal Life”!!

Been building our place for so many years now it’s actually totally surreal living in our 99.9% complete log home….

WAHOOOO!!!!!

Enjoy our pic heavy blog post here as we take you on a picture tour of our log home / future “The Stillwater B&B”:

West side of our home with board-n-batt all complete… just need to add pickets to our 2nd floor master bedroom deck.

Northwest View

Night view showing exterior lighting.

Front Door… “Come On In!”

View from an open front door into our living room

Looking up as you enter our log home

Same Pic using flash this time… some pics were taken without flash to show the real lighting, some with the flash on.

Looking at our living room’s wood stove and stone hearth and into our dining room.

Our living rooms built in entertainment center… seating area ties into our wood stove hearth.

Our Dining Room

View of our kitchen from the dining room

View from our living room looking into our kitchen

View from kitchen looking into our living room

Our guest bedroom

Another view of our Guest Bedroom…. Yes, we still need curtains too.

Our Guest Bathroom

Our Guest Bathrooms Tub / Shower enclosure

Our Laundry Room / Mud Room

One of Kitchen Pantries

Back to our living room… let’s go upstairs!

A quick look at Boo-Boo our upstairs guardian!.. Still wanna’ go upstairs?

Boo-Boo decked out for Christmas

Looking upstairs

View of our trophy wall as you walk up our stairs

View from top of stairs looking down into our Living Room

Our Master Bedroom

Another view of our Master Bedroom

More Master Bedroom

Our Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom’s Dbl. Shower

Master Bathroom’s 6′ Whirlpool soaking Tub.

Our Daughter Anjelika’s Bedroom… Still need to build her a log ladder for her Bed Loft.

One of Anjelika’s Walk-In Closets

One of Anjelika’s Walk-In Closet nooks.

Anjelika has her own bathroom and throne too!

Our Daughter Anjelika showing off her own full bath and shower and wishing you all the best in the New Year.

O.K., I didn’t quite meet my 1 month “Final Inspection” deadline goal I set for myself… had a couple of set-backs and have been busier than snot guiding every day and working on the cabin till’ dark every night. With all the e-mail and verbal hints… Here Ya go, More “Log Home Porn” for Ya!

Exterior of our Log Home as of today with the wrap around deck all joisted out and decked off… Thanks to my wife Corrina who organized a work party (Had a guided trip cancellation) while I was away Archery Elk Hunting with my Brother-In-Law (Gotta’ take at least a few days off here and there to keep ones sanity ) and Corrina called up a bunch of my close friends and made the plans…. Thank You again,  Bill, Jeff, Jimbo, Cal, and Chris for all the help!!! Could’nt have done it without you guys!!!

Our Log Homes wrap-around deck all joisted out and decked off with a-lot of help from good friends!!

Tour of our log homes interior from our front door… Our Living Room with our interior flooring all in and our now operable wood stove.

View From our Front Door looking up our Stair… All of our interior Pine Board and Batt alomost all complete!… All of our finish electrical almost done now too :-)

View from the top of stairs looking down into the Living Room at the finished Board-N-Batt and Wall Sconces.

Enrty Way / Living Room Lighting

Another View of our Living Room from top of Stairs.

Our Daughter Anjelika’s bedrooms Board-N-Batt all done and Electrical done.

Another view of Anjelika’s room.

Anjelika’s Bathroom is now all complete too!!

Master Bedroom’s Board-N-Batt almost done… View looking at French Doors looking out onto our 2nd Floor Deck.

View of Sauk Mountain from our Master Bedroom deck today.

View looking back into our Master Bedroom from our 2nd Floor Deck.

Master Bathroom all done and ready for final!!

View of our Master Bathrooms finsihed 6 foot Whirlpool Jetted Tub. :-)

View of Master Bathrooms Finished Shower!!

View of finished Kitchen with all of our Stainless Steel appliances and back splashes.

Another View of Finished Kitchen.

View of Kitchen from Laundry Room Door.

Guest Bathroom almost complete!!

 Almost ready for our Log Home’s final inspection now… a couple more weeks and we’ll be there!!!

Our 35′ X 46′ “Manrage” is all framed up and ready to go now too!!!

“Manrage” complete with 750 Sq Ft upstairs office space!!

Have our Well House all dried in an insulated now as well.

O.K…. Ya all Happy?!?! Lotsa’ Log Home Porn for Ya!! Next up… Final Inspection Pics and then were all moved in!!!

Kinda’ wrapping things up now on the inside of our log home anyways… been crazy busy!! Many long, long hours but the tile is all in thanks to friend Mark and Corrina, most of the plumbing is all trimmed out and we now have running water and power. Board and Batt is almost done and stained and besides a great shiner and a little shock now and then hooking up the electrical… All is great!!!

How’s this for a Shiner to show for a days work.

Granite Counter Tops just about done, stonework sealed, all new appliances delivered and in place, and plumbing in and working.

Wood Stove installed and ready to go, Hearth and Mantel stonework all sealed too.

Guest Bathroom all in and pretty much done!

Guest Bath vanity and framed in mirror using board-n-batt.

Baths and showers all sealed with doors installed … Running water was a huge milestone!!

New Washer and Dryer all plumbed in and working in the laundry room, making for a very, very happy Corrina !!

Guest Bedroom pretty much all buttoned up and ready for guests!

Laminate Flooring going in  downstairs!

Subbed out our Garage, and its going in now too! Garden in pic here is a bit over-grown with weeds but still producing some great vegis!

Decided I needed a short break from all the wood work and decided to work on some of our interior cultured stonework this past week. After some really, really long days its all but done now.

First all the cement board had to be put in place.

After Cement board was put up, wire mesh or “Masons Lathe” was put over that…

Over the wire using a notched trowel and thin coat of motar a “scratch coat” was then layed for the stonework to attach to.

Putting up stone over the scratch coat

Stone was first layed out on the floor in the pattern that best worked varying colors and sizes and then place upon the wall.

Using eihter a mortar bag or doing like I did and just mixing a dryer batch of mortar crevices between the stones were filled and ready for “pointing”

Pointing up the stonework

Pointing up the stones gives it that finished look. Worked from early AM till midnight on our kitchen bar.

After the mortar was allowed to cure a couple of days my lovely wife Corrina began acid washing the excess mortar off before we seal the stones.

Mantel area all acid washed and hearth ready for acid washing

Another view of Mantel and Hearth area

View of Kithen Bar area all pointed up and ready for acid washing.

Another view of Kitchen Bar area.

Next Up… sealed stonework, tile all in and more board and batt done.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve taken some time off from buttoning up the interior of our log home to dig a trench from the street to the our log home to lay in power, phone and cable TV (400′ long trench) and from out log home to our new well pump and pump house (a 480′ long trench) 

Trench with our power run through the schedule 40 pipe and our direct burial phone line and cable all layed in and spaced per code.

Poly Pipe run to our well along with UF 10-3 wire for power… Pic showing 2′ seperation.

Our 480′ long trench from Cabin to Pump House

Once power lines and water line was run trenches were back-filled to within’ a foot or so of being completely filled and a warning ribbon showing underground line was put in.   

Long overdue Blog Update here for sure…. been super busy trying to complete our log home right smack in the middle of our Spring Chinook season. Since our last update we’ve completed our rough plumbing and electrical, insulated, had a new well drilled and built a new pump house, added some granite counter-tops, sound proofed our framed walls and floors with foam board insulation, covered our upstairs floors with sub-floor and we are now covering our walls with their finish pine board and batt…. Check out the pics:

“The Canucks”, Trish and Andre down for the day helping out sound proofing our upstairs walls and floors with foam board insulation…. Thanks again Trish and Andre!!

LHBA  Member, “Dutch”… showed up with Trish and Andre to lend a hand for the day. Thanks again too Dutch!!

Good friend, Blues Brother Mark Belushi out to help install our granite counter-tops. (Of course Mark’s not really a Belushi… but he sure could be)

Rough Electrical all in and passed inspection… ready for cover and final. :-)

Rough Plumbing all in and passed inspection too.

Interior Framing all done, sub-floor down, Insulation in and all inspected… one last Building Dept. inspection… FINAL!!! … WAHOOOO!!

Cement board all up and ready for rock venear!

Chose not to use any sheet-rock any of our walls and keep with the rustic wood look throughout… Going with pine board and batt on all of our interior walls. Here’s our start on our upstairs bathroom.

Window trimmed out and board and batt started in the master bathroom!

Got our Kitchen and Living Room Entertainment Center cabinets back from getting faced, stained and the doors put on and now their all installed too… and looking Sweeeeeeeeeeet!!!

Here’s our cabinet guy Eric from “Vans Cabinets” in Lynden, WA. installing our finished cabinets. Thanks again Eric!!

Eric leveling up and installing our Kitchen Cabinets. I designed all the cabinets around what Corrina wanted in her kitchen and framed all the base and upper cabinet boxes using a shop grade birch plywood and Eric came and picked them up and stained, faced and did the doors and hardware for us using  knotty alder…. I’d say the stain Corrina picked out and the finish job eric did matches our interior log stain rather nicely.

Happy Day, helping Eric with the final installation of our Kitchen cabinets. Oh yeah, have I mentioned again how much I really hate the Hole Hawg!!… That dark red mark on my cheek, Yeah,.. again blood… Hole Hawg caught while drilling, spun around and caught me in the cheek and knocked me off the ladder… put a hole clean through my cheek!!

View of Kitchen Cabinets from Laundry Room.

Kitchen Cabinet Bases showing Knotty Alder doors.

View of Kitchen Cabinets from Living Room.

Another View of Kitchen Cabinets from Living Room.

Corner Lazy Susan Cabinet.

Corner Glass front cabinet and stem-ware holder below cabinet.

View looking back towards laundry room at Fridge Cabinet and base cabinet knotched around RPSL.

Living Room built in Entertainment Center and base cabinets.

Living Room Base cabinets tying into Wood Stove hearth and mantel wall.

Lving Room Base Cabinets.

Moving right along on in the completion of our log home now despite a major set-back by our old “wanna-be” plumbers! It is a good thing having great friends and neighbors willing to lend a hand when needed!

My beautiful wife Corrina took all last week off to work on our log home. Here’s Corrina laying in the interior backer-rod in preparation for our interior chinking… coming soon! Not only beautiful but one of the hardest working women I know! Completing our log home would not be possible without her! Thank You Honey!

Larry came down from Canada (”Larry the Canadian”) to help out for a day… Thank You again Larry!! Here’s Larry with hammer and chisel notching in for our electrical boxes. Great having someone as detail oriented as I am working on our log home!

Here’s a Pic of some of Larry’s work… a 3 way Switch-Box notched into logs.

No that’s not snow on me… Have I mentioned how much I hate Hole Hawgs!!!… Here’s a pic Corrina took of me while drilling through our roof and all its insulation for our plumbing vent pipes. Ugggghhhh!!! I had bruises all over and busted up knuckles from working the Hole Hawg for all the plumbing drains and vent pipes! :-(   Oh, and my initials in the pic there over my head… yeah they were written in blood. Have literally left my mark in blood, sweat and tears into every part of our log home!

Had Clyde Owens from “Pacific Log Homes” (Link to his site here on Blog) out the past two days to bust out the main part of our interior staining with me.(Interior Logs and Ceilings) Two long hard days with both of us running sprayers and back-brushing our own work we knocked er’ out! Thanks Again Clyde!! Wanted to get all of our main interior stained now rather than tape off and cover all of our finish items like granite, finished cabinets, etc. later down the road. All of our interior walls will be finished with pine board and batt (No sheet rock here on our place)… I’ll pre-stain it on the ground and then put it up.

All of our Interior Framing is done now too other than the small interior gable end wall where HVAC Heat Echange Unit is. :-)

View of our Dining Room’s logs and ceiling all stained… We used “Perma-Chink’s” Light Natural for our interior stain color and finished of with “Perma-Chink’s” Satin finish and sealer.

View of Kitchen Ceiling’s 4″ X 10″ rafters and 2″X 8″ T&G Pine all stained.

View from Kitchen looking towards Guest Bedroom and Laundry Room.

View from Kitchen towards Pantry, under stairs, and Living Room / Great Room.

View looking at Living Room / Great Room from Kitchen. (Walking Ya’ around house here now… Stay with me)

View back towards Kitchen and Dining Room from Living Room / Great Room.

Great Room Ceiling looking up and East from front door.

Looking up and towards the West and Master Bedroom from Great Room’s front front door.

Same view of Upstairs, taken at a different angle from Great Room.

View from upstairs looking back down towards Great Room.

View from upstairs landing looking into our daughter Anjelika’s bedroom.

View looking into Master Bedroom from top stair landing.

… Got that ball rolling and its all down hill from here… We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!! :-) 

We now have all of our HVAC (Forced air heating and Air Conditioning) and Plumbing going in now…. Getting a little held up by our plumbers, but everything else is moving right along towards the completion of our Log Home! Wahoooo!!!

Good friend Tom has designed and is in the process of installing all of our HVAC for us. Thank You again Tom!

HVAC Duct running through upstairs flooring. On top of our exposed from below,  4 X 10 second floor joists covered with 2 X 8 T&G Pine, we ran 2X6’s on edge so we had room to insulate our floors for noise and run all of our Plumbing, HVAC Ducts and Electrical wiring. 

Our HVAC Heat Exchange Unit goes above our Master Bathroom on the 2nd floor and all the Ducts run down from there. The actual unit is suspended from the ceiling so we dont ever hear it while taking a bath.

HVAC Ducts running down through Stud bays from above Master Bathrroom.

2 X 6 2nd floor joisting on top of 2X8 T&G showing HVAC Duct Run all insulated with 2″ foam board insulation for sound barrier…. Duct work for this run started in Pic.

Here’s a pic of our plumbing vent and drain pipes going in.

Our Plumbing finally going in!

 Should be finished up with Rough Plumbing and HVAC and started on our Elecrical by the end of this coming weekend.