Hello and Welcome to Bearfort Lodge. I hope that you enjoy your visit and find the information you seek. Please feel free to leave a comment. -- Bearfort

A reader of Bearfort Lodge recently sent me this wonderful email and photos of their beautiful work - Stunning! - Here is their email and photos.

Hi there! Using your mortar mix suggestions and simple steps, laid back attitude, and easy tofollow article - we have finally re-chinked the logs under our porch!

Thanks to you - after two years of researching methods and what to use and how to do - yours was the simplest and best.

Read more about this beautiful chinking project

It is always exciting to hear from readers of Bearfort Lodge.

Not too long ago I heard from the Ryans who had left a comment on a previous post– [Just purchased and starting to renovate an 1830's log "dog-trot" farm house. Can't tell you how much your articles on log restoration and chinking have helped us. We don't feel quite so overwhelmed now. Thanks.]

I contacted them to thank them for their comment, express my excitement over their project and offer further chinking information should they need it. I learned that they had purchased what they thought was a standard construction 1830s farmhouse with the desire to restore. It was when they started to dig in that they learned what they actually had was a log home….

Below is the email and photos -

Read more about the Ryans' hand hewn home

Paul, as addressed in the previous post, is tackling a major rebuilding and restoration of an outstanding hand hewn log home that he disassembled and moved from Pennsylvania to his property in West Virginia.

Disassembling a log home is a long laborious process. Each log, its position and adjoining logs must me marked properly before dismantling so that the pieces fit back together when reassembled.

Paul says that he is not exactly sure of the age of the original log home. “the logs are apparently old growth yellow pine and heavy as heck” he writes.

Replacement of some of the logs was necessary as over the years there had been some modifications with the addition of doors and windows leaving a structure that he felt was a bit unstable.

Read more on Paul's project