Log & Timber Home Living magazine is the ultimate guide to log, timber and hybrid homes. Expect expert advice on everything from floor plan design to materials and maintenance, as well as inspiring home tours, decorating ideas and more!
Log homes aren’t just about the logs. They might seem to be, but to paraphrase Julius Caesar: “All is divided into three parts.” Logs play only one of the parts. The others are Land and Look. All affect the home’s design. Logs, while they support the building, also influence Look. Look has an outside and an inside. So do the logs. Outside, they signify and dominate. Inside, they act with other ingredients, most notably the furniture. Furniture, sometimes more than logs, determines the interior look. Balancing logs and furniture requires coordination but aesthetic, not physical (beyond the effort required to rearrange furniture). Speaking of rearranging, you can always change furniture to alter the inside look. Your logs, however, will never change. It would be possible to create the illusion of…
FLOOR PLANS Customize your search by size, rooms and more to view layouts that match your needs. loghome.com/loorplans HOW-TO GUIDES You’ll find helpful articles galore, like this primer on avoiding common mistakes with open floor plans. loghome.com/tips NEWS & OFFERS Our free weekly newsletter points you to helpful planning, design and maintenance articles that will save you time and money. Plus, you’ll get first dibs on special deals from our partners. Subscribe now at loghome.com/newsletters PODCASTS Listen and learn as our editors share lessons from 30 years of covering log-home construction. Great place to start: Download “Living the Dream: A Look Inside Cabins, Log and Timber Homes” via iTunes, or play it directly at loghome.com/podcasts VIRTUAL HOME TOURS Our new interactive 3-D tours let you view and customize concept homes…
Pastoral Appreciation. A loghome porch needn’t be elaborate or the view awe-inspiring to enrich the log-home experience. A farmland setting can be as calming or inspiring as any. The key is that when you site the home, you face it in the right direction to maximize the view. Three Chairs for the Scenery. The purpose of porches and decks is to sit, not stand or walk around. Relax. That means having the right chairs and in the right position to make the most of the near and distant views. Classic perches are wicker, typically cushioned (opposite), and the venerable Adirondack chairs (shown in various forms at left and below ). Though wicker is more stylish, slat-back Adirondacks also feature wide arm rests, which are ideal resting places for drinks, books…
Home OF THE month Without changing the footprint of this Oregon home, interior designer Eveyln Green improved its curb appeal by embellishing the entry columns with faux-stone footings that reiterate the central fireplace stone and basement facing. At first glance, these Vancouver, Washington, homeowners believed that the fully furnished log home they purchased from its previous owners in Government Camp, Oregon, would be perfect for their needs. It was clear from the beginning, however, that the home’s cottage-style furnishings, lack of window treatments and general ambiance simply did not mesh with the family’s Northwest lifestyle, which includes a love of the outdoors, and entertaining family and friends. They turned to a familiar face for help. Having worked on three of the family’s homes that preceded this one, interior designer Evelyn…
1 GO PRO. Start by engaging professionals to undertake whatever remodeling you plan to do. “Remodeling log homes is not a DIY situation,” says Green. 2 PROJECT MANAGE. The key to any project is finding a pro who understands your needs, lifestyle and personality, in order to expand and enhance your ideas. 3 FRAME IT UP. Rather than rely on log floors and walls to be plumb, frame kitchen and baths within the box for better alignment and function of new cabinetry and doors, tile, flooring and tubs. 4 KNOW YOUR WOOD. Inform your design by understanding the properties of all woods: their hardness, performance and ability to take stain. Green chose alder, known as the chameleon wood, for the cabinetry. “It’s considered a hard wood, yet is softer than…
Most people who choose half-log homes do so to modify the log look, usually with drywall. Not so for the owners of this home, located on 6.2 acres with 250 feet of lake frontage in northwestern Wisconsin. They wanted wood from floor to ceiling and in between. A support post for the loft, for instance, is a hand-peeled tree trunk, complete with flared base. Another example is the handcrafted-log frame around the passageway between the living room and the dining and kitchen areas. There’s also log trim around the windows and round logs for the deck. Half-log construction involves building a home conventionally and then splitting full logs to affix to the inside and outside of the framed, insulated walls. But this home has a full-log look, using dark-stained eastern…
