The Koenig Family Log Blog

 Really wish I had some more pics to update ya here with, but I don’t. Have pretty much the whole month off to work on the completion of our log home here and have been going to town on it…. Not many pics to show because its all pretty much been pick-up framing work and buffing down the interior logs for staining prep.

 Cabinets have all been taken off to my cabinet guy to get stained and faced and have doors put on but before they were taken off to the shop I built these really nice seating area cabinets from our hearth that wrapped around the whole corner and included a built in entertainment center. These cabinets were built girthy enough to support the Montana Ledge Rock we’ll be using on our Wood Stove hearth and will wrap around the whole room and gon into our window sills.

Here’s a pic of the wood stove hearth I built and a huge mantel piece that we basically cut a pie out of a 4′ diameter Douglas Fir log. Framed wall area will be sheathed with “Wonder Board” and then covered in River Rock… same with base of hearth.

Pics just dont do the size of this mantel justice… but trust me… It’s girthy!! (Insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt here) Mantel was attached to framed wall using 3 16″ long Galvonized lag bolts through a 4 X 12 hdr. nailed into framed wall. Strong enough to hold me standing on it.

Front view of Mantel You can also see the dif colors of stain we were testing out behind the framed wall before deciding on the color we are going with. I guess you can kinda’ get an idea of the mantel size here if you compare it to the 12 - 16″ diameter logs in the wall behind it.

Just got done framing out all of our Kitchen Cabinets today and they have all been nice and snuggly dry fitted and all are plumb and level. Just need to face them, have the cabinet doors put on and have them stained and theyr’e all ready for Granite.

 Its all coming together now… All of our interior walls are are framed in and its time for cabinets and built in wall units and then plumbing, HVAC, and Electrical.

View of high-bar side of kitchen and cabinets. High bar wall will be covered in river rock, top of bar and counter tops will be covered with granite.

View of Kitchen as if you were walking into it from Living Room.

View of Kitchen Cabinets from Laundry Room

Just another Kitchen Cabinet Pic.

Detail Pic of Kitchen Cabinets cut around R.P.S.L…. And Corrina thought she wasn’t going to get any cabinet space or even counter space around the R.P.S.L. :-) 

Knowing how much you love the scenery here in the NW and that today was such a beautiful day I took a couple of “Scenery Pics” for you from our Master Bedroom Balcony.

  Pic is from our Balcony looking West just as it started to warm up this morning.

Here’s the view North from  our Master Bedroom Balcony looking at Sauk Mountain.

 Thanks for your encouragement and keeping up with our Blog, Gina.

 Love and Light,  John and Corrina

Just about got all of our Interior Framing done! Walls are all framed in now… Just have some more over-frame joisting to do in the  Master Bedroom, a bunch of blocking to add and a few pony walls. Then its on to framing up our Master Bedroom tub deck, Rasied Wood Stove hearth framing, and all of our Kitchen Cabinet framing.

1st Floor Walls all framed in and blocked out.

View up from Guest Bedroom Closet looking at 4 x 10 second floor joists and 2 x 8 T&G Decking.

View at 2nd floor Vaulted Ceiling wall framing from Living room

2nd Floor Backside View of room from previous Picture. This is our Daughter, “Anjelika’s” bedroom… very kewl room!! View from her doorway looking into room and loft I framed in for her bed… can fit a King Sized bed up there! She also has a walk-in closet there to the right.

Reverse view of same bedroom looking back out into hallway and at Master Bedroom door. Anjelika gets her own bathroom too there to left with a Pocket Door framed into the wall.

Interior view from Master Bedroom doorway looking at French Doors going out on to our own balcony.

View from Master Bedroom looking at Mater Bathroom and Walk-In CLoset.  Above Master bath we used White Fire (White Fir Stains up really, really nice) 4 X 10 beams and then decked with 2 X 6 T&G. Above the Master Bath is where we’re putting our furnace and all vent pipes will vent out that gable above bathroom ceiling.

This Blog Post is for other “Log Home Builders Association” members that have e-mailed us with some specific design and building questions. (Hope these pics and pic links work for you guys)

1st Off the option to having a “Girder Bracket” all custom welded up to support log girder against RPSL’s :

“Click Here for Girder Detail Picture from our Plans”

 No custom welding costs here and all we used to notch girder and RPSL was a “Skil Saw” and Chisel…. Just make sure you have the 2 inches of full bearing both on RPSL and Girder.  ;-) 

2nd Our Homemade 2nd Floor 4 X 10 Hangers:

We went to “Skagit River Steel” and bought some Channel Steel and had them cut the length pieces we needed. (54 Pieces for under $200.00) We then brought the pieces home, borrowed my neighbors drill press and drilled out the holes, cleaned off oil from Steel and spray painted Black.

“Click Here for a 2nd Floor Rim Detail Picture from our Plans Showing the 4 X 10 Hangers and how they are installed”

Here’s a Pic of our Home Made 4 X 10 Hangers

Hangers in Place holding up our 4 X 10 Joists

 Lastly,  more to help with our most asked about e-mail question… How did we do that Split Gable?

“Click Here for Roof Framing Detail Picture from our Plans showing the split gable and rafter over-framing”

By request, here’s the picture of the 4 X 12 Valley Pan used for the Split Gable over-framing. Get what I was talking about now?

 LHBA Instructor, “Ellsworth” is coming out to our place later this afternoon to take some pics. Hopefully he’ll get some great pics that he can use and help others with in class and the LHBA Forums.

 Keep the questions coming and I’ll try and answer them and post pics for ya here on the Blog as I can. As always, any LHBA Member is more than welcome to come on by and check our place out… just drop us an e-mail and we’ll set up a time.

We’re totally dried in now and working on the inside of our log home now! :-)… All of our Exterior Doors are in, Floor is all joisted out and decked, most of the 1st Floor Interior Walls are all framed, and we got our Stairs framed in this weekend!

Totally Dried In, including all exterior doors! We even have a little space heater in our log home definately keeping the inside warmer than the outside!

View of French Doors and Deck off of Master Bedroom

We got our 1st Floor all Joisted out on Jan 15th, 2008… Now it has already been decked off and we’re framing interior walls.

Have almost all of our 1st Floor Walls Framed in and we got our Stairs framed in this past Sat.

We now have just about all of our 1st floor walls framed in and our tubs and showers delivered and in place… just have some blocking to do and then a couple of small pony walls and its on to the 2nd floor framing. :-) 

Murphy’s law too!!..  The day after the roofers finish the laying the metal we get a nice day. Current forecasts call for nicer weather all week too!

Working around the roofers, I also got the gable ends all framed in and completed and vapor barrier on.

Cabin with roof all done… NW Corner view.

Roof all done!! NE Corner View!

Cabin / Roof North View! …Oh Yeah, Got the second floor deck all joisted out too!

Roof / Gable End  done and Cabin, West view.  :-)

Roof and back gable, SW View.

Even had our Log Gazebo roofed!

… Next up… Joisting out 1st Floor. 

We have a very small amount of Fascia left to hang before being entirely complete… but we’re pretty much there! Have the day off tomorrow to hang the rest of it and put up our vapor barrier for roofing…. Here’s some pics!

North East side of our Log Home with Fascia all hung. :-)  Two 2 X 8 cedar boards on top with a 2 X 12 piece of cedar on the bottom… little cedar detail on all the gable end peeks too. Left a 6 ” over-hang on gable-end fascia to hide gutter ends.

North side of our Log Home… Roof Overframing and Fascia Detail.

North West side of our Log Home. Fascia Detail

Southern view of our Log Home… one 18′  2 X 12 board short on my Fascia take-off… wont hold back the roof any though!!

Next up… Metal Roofing, 2nd Floor Deck, Exterior Doors and 1st Floor Joisting. 

Had one week off from guiding, due to flood conditions on our local rivers and had the next week scheduled off to work on the Log Home Roof… with all the recent snow and freezing temps the roof overframing went a little slower than expected… BUT… with a little help from Family and Friends we kept on top of it and “Got-R-Done”!!

Couldn’t ask for a better Brother-In-Law !! My Brother-In-Law Justin has been up helping on our log home on numerous occassions now… here Justin is as my cut man as I skip-sheet my way up the roof. Thanks Again Justin!!

Couldn’t have asked for a better Sister-In-Law either!!! Here’s my Sister-In-Law Tricia stacking up our 1 X 8 Pine Skip-Sheeting. Thank You Tricia… I Love Ya Trish!!

Here I am nailing more “Simpson L30″ clips on to the overframing and doing my best keeping ahead of my Brother-In-Law Justin.

Good buddy Chris (Far Left) keeping ahead of Justin and I nailing more L30 clips to the roof overframing… Justin gettin’ some more roof insulation and skip-sheeting measurements from me.

Skip-sheeting and working our way along the gable ends.

Good friend Mitch and my old boss, back when I was a Framer, Jeff working behind us hanging the Fascia Boards… Thank You Again Jeff and Mitch!!!

Our Daughter Anjelika helping out by scrapping out around the job site… and of course none of this would have been made any easier without the help of my wonderful wife Corrina!! Thank you again Momma… I Love You!!

Our local Building Inspector came out to inspect our roof over-framing and insulation (passed roof overframe, insulation, and can-light electrical inspection) and he had to make sure we had an “R 30″ on our roof insulation… We figured out that we have greater than “R30″ which is really good for us!! Says on insulation that 4.5 inches will give us an “R30.3″ We have 4.6 inches on top of 1/2″ plywood and 2 X 8 tongue and groove pine… Plus a dead air space in between both layers of insulation, which according to the note below on insulation increases the R Value… WAY KEWL!!!

Many have been wondering how we were planning on doing our Roof Insulation, adding our overhang Can Lights and getting our log home ready for the metal roofing… well here’s a detailed discription of the entire process… and where we’re at today:

First step in the overframing was to rip 2 X 6’s at 4 & 3/4″ s for the wrap-around porch and the gable overhangs not getting insulated. Ripped 2 X 6’s were then set every 2 feet on center and boxes were also framed in for our can lights. Overframing was done over our 2 X 8 T&G Pine and “Titanium - UDL” Vapor Barrier.

After overframing was complete, Can Lights were cut in and wired and “Simpson L30″ clips were added along the overframing every 1 foot on center, holding the overframing down to the 2 X 8 T&G Pine.

Working our way up the roof now! First we start with 1 X 8 Utility Grade Pine and start Skip Sheeting up over the wrap-around porch overhang up to where our insulation begins.  Pine is nailed to overframing with 3 eight penny galvonized nails every 2′ on center. We then add 4′ X 8′ by 2″ thick  ”Thermax Insulation” lying horizontally… Over the 1st layer of insulation 1 X 8 Pine Boards are then added every 2′ on center vertically and nailed through to the deck bellow using 20 penny galvonized nails.

Our second layer of Insulation is then added vertically over the 1st layer, bringing the level up to the 4 & 3/4″ ripped 2 X 6’s.  The we continue with our skip sheeting right up the roof. Notice the layering of insulation.

Insulation layering and Skip Sheeting detail. Skip sheeting over overframing is nailed with 3 eight penny nails every 2′ on center; Skip sheeting over second layer of insulation is nailed to vertical skip sheeting below every 2′ on center using 3 twenty penny galvonized nails. Valleys will be skip sheeted solid for metal valley pans.

And here’s where we ended the day today!