At Last! Log Work.

Here we are posing with our first sill log...oh what a happy occasion!

While it seemed that we would never get to this point, we are thrilled to say that "we are stacking logs". Everything that we have done up to this point has been necessary, but tedious, because we were so ready to be stacking logs. Finally, at long last, we are placing our sill logs on the foundation.  A few days ago we selected the 3 logs that would be required to make our half sills. We took these logs to the mill and carefully aligned them to insure a near perfect half log. For many people the next step is to draw knife the log to remove the bark; we are fortunate that the bark falls off of dried Yellow Pine extremely easy. These logs were cut last year and there is virtually no bark left on them, and what is there falls off with little effort (no draw knife required).

For size reference, the log on the mill in this image is 17 inches at the butt and 13.5 inches at the tip and measures 31 feet long. (the tip end is nearest the camera)

 

With the half sills in place, tonight we fitted our first 3/4 sill log.  This means that we were able to scribe and notch for the first time in a while.  It was an extremely exciting evening for us, and our visitors. If you ever decide to take on a project like this, be aware upfront that you will have a lot of folks that want to come and watch the scribing and notching. You will also run into a lot of nay-sayers along the way too. Until they watch it in person they will have a hard time believing that it will fit together so well.

As you can see in this image our first notch fit nice and tight just like it is supposed to and once we tighten it down to the all-thread anchor rods it will be an amazing fit. After cutting the notches we put it in place for an initial fit and found that it was nearly perfect. After a very small amount of tweaking, we made a second attempt and it slid on perfectly.

We are tired but very happy to have this first cross log in place. Tomorrow will find us in the log pile finding the perfect log to for the opposite wall; just a few more sills and we will be going UP.

With Just A Little Luck

Some time ago we ran across an interesting story about "building the luck" into your new home.  It seems that many years ago it was considered lucky to put a coin into your home as you were building it.  I have found stories of people putting a penny in the foundation and others of people who put silver dollars under the sill boards. Some stories say that it is for luck and others say it is to bring prosperity to the homeowners.  Either way we decided not to take any chances.  We put a penny in the foundation for luck; and 4 quarters in the sill board under the first sill log.  We couldn't easily find a silver dollar and it seemed fitting to put 4 quarters instead.  Even though Orrin can't be here for the building project this will still be HOME for him and Courtney when they are on leave from the US Navy. So the penny is stuck and the quarters are in place; and as an added measure we all signed the sill board. We were so happy to have Orrin home for a long weekend so that he could put his quarter in place.

 

Here's to luck and prosperity 

for us and the future generations who will live in our log home.

 

Sill Board Installation

Well section 1 is READY for LOGS!  This morning John and Lisa went out and put several types of insulation in place and put the sill boards down.  This section is now water tight in case of rain, which is a possibility in the forecast for the next 5 days.

The first step was putting down the foam sill insulation.  This insulation is 5.5 inches wide and we had to cut open a slot for it to fit around the all-thread rods. It didn't want to stay in place for anything, so finally we put down a thin bead of caulk to help hold it in place while we moved on to the next steps.








Secondly where the plywood subfloor and the block wall meet we had a small gap, so we lifted the sill insulation and we used low fill spray insulation (from a can) to fill in this gap. We are trying our best to make sure that there is no way for moisture to get down under the floor during construction, and hopefully this will all help keep drafts out of the picture.




Lastly we put down 2x8 sill boards which had to have holes drilled in them for the all-thread rod to come up through. By design there is a gap under the sill board that will eventually allow us to slide the finished flooring under the sill and the log, but until then we didn't want rain water to have a place to hide. After much discussion it was decided that we would buy cheap 1/2 inch foam pipe insulation and cut in it half lengthwise to form a gasket of sorts. We shoved it under the sill board and then put in a few nails to hold it down. This can all be pulled out much later when we are ready to install the hardwood flooring.

OK...now to finish sections 2 and 3 and let's get to the logs!

Section 1 Subfloor

While on our jobsite we refer to the different areas of the house by sections not by individual rooms.  We have 3 sections; Section 1 is the Great Room, Section 2 is the Kitchen/Dinning/and Office, Section 3 is John's Bedroom/Bathroom and the Laundry/Mechanical rooms. 

We also refer to each wall by a specific letter (A-L).  This may seem strange to some, but for us it cuts down on the confusion.

 

So in section 1 we now have the subfloor down, we used 3/4" plywood, and we screwed the sheets down to the joists.









 After all of the plywood was down we went back and put silicone caulk on all of the joints to help seal out any water. 




 Then to protect the plywood from moisture and undue wear and tear of us walking on it we painted the entire floor with outdoor latex paint.  Since our main objective is to keep water out and not decorating we went to our local hardware store and bought "woops paint" from them.  ("woops paint" is a paint that is mixed the wrong color) 

 It is a little difficult to see in the picture, but the floor in Section 1 is cream, dark grey and baby blue.

 Buying "woops paint" is fun, not only do you get a variety of colors but it is also half price.  As needed we will go back and repaint areas where the plywood shows wear.  Just make sure that it is outdoor paint so that it will withstand the rain and dirt better.

As you can see, John is having way too much fun finishing up the painting, he is using 2 rollers at the same time.

Now we have to repeat the plastic, rock, subfloor, caulking and painting in the other 2 sections.

Moisture Control

Here in Louisiana moisture control is VERY important.  Anyone who knows anything about log homes will tell you that moisture is not your friend. So we are doing everything that we can to control the amount of moisture under the house. 

We are painting the lower blocks with a rubberized coating to prevent moisture from coming in. Later on we will post about the French drain as we install it. We have to be cautious not to get the coating too high up on the wall, eventually we will be making and installing faux rock and it will not adhere to the waterproof coating.

Our prints call for 6mil plastic to be put down under the house as a vapor barrier, we decided to take it one step further and put a thin layer of   washed smooth rocks on top of the plastic, this will help keep the plastic in place and also provide a layer of natural insulation.

Now let's get that subfloor down to keep water off of the rocks.