Now that the weather has warmed up work has resumed on the remodeling of the small bath and shower installation.

The two stick frame walls have been insulated and covered in a plastic vapor barrier. The log wall shown here in the first photo has not seen the light of day for probably 50 years or more and needed a serious cleaning. The tops of the logs were covered with a thick black soot from years of coal and wood burning heat.

Using my home recipe for cleaning logs I have gently washed down the logs with a soft bristle brush. This process will brighten the wood slightly. However once clean I will re-stain and seal the logs at a later stage of the construction.

read more about cleaning the logs

For years it had sat in boxes and crates in the recesses of a storage area in the barn back in Illinois. As a kid I remember many times having to move it here or there with instructions to keep the boxes together when ever that part of the barn was ‘reorganized’.

Each box had a few pieces of this and that and a drawer front or two. Here and there a stile was mixed in with a piece of molding or a shelf. Larger pieces had been neatly stacked atop or along side the boxes in no particular order. Some boxes held doors, handles and hinges and a small drawer or two and always provided perfect shelter for spiders and mice among the captured debris.

The cabinet itself had been reduced to a stack of slats and boards tucked away in the corner loosely tied together with baling twine.

Read more about the kitchen hutch

The shower attached to the small bathroom, as discussed in the previous installment, has been removed and the space opened up to its original 6 by 6 space.

The narrow door as seen in this photo is only 19 inches wide and leads to the bathroom. The walls have been stripped of the cheesy press-board paneling.

This room originally served as a bathroom for the tavern and is situated in a corner of the veranda game room. As layers of paneling were stripped away one could see on the floor where the toilet and sink once set. The ceiling of the small room has been removed to expose the game room ceiling which slopes from 12 foot down to 10 foot.

Read more about the bathroom remodeling

I needed a pot rack here at the lodge. I couldn’t have one hanging overhead with cathedral ceilings in the kitchen and even if I could I didn’t want to interrupt the space.

I use my copper pots and pans. What is the point of having them if you don’t use them?

I have seen iron pot racks, wood pot racks, stainless steel pot racks and an assortment of others but I didn’t care for the designs nor the cost. I wanted a simple pot rack that I could mount on the sidewall. The pot rack needed to be simple, about 5 to 6 feet long and tight to the wall.

Read more about making a copper pot rack

I have not been a big fan of track lighting but it does have its place and time. In an effort to provide more light in the kitchen here at the lodge, the previous owners had installed track lights on the log trusses overhead. As if Ethel Merman stepped in to sing Ave Maria the two were not a good mix.

The white plastic tracks and large white canister lights screamed out in their stark contrast to everything and immediately drew your attention upwards, not to the cathedral ceilings but to the lights and tracks themselves. It was one of the first thing noticed in the kitchen.

read more about camouflaging track lights

The bathroom remodeling has begun.

The original bathroom had lovely salmon floor tiles. The walls were covered to a height of 48 inches with cute white 4×4 tiles with delicate little blue and pink flowers. A built-in Medicine cabinet with fluorescent tube lights helped to illuminate the brilliant sunflower-yellow sink and tiny white toilet. The cabinet on which the sink set was shiny white with small applied filigree baroque carvings enameled with gold paint. The handles were little lacy brass pulls. Above the tile, elegant white wall paper with blue and white pinstripes and little blue and pink flowers graced the walls. A graceful lime green vine connected the flowers bunching them into little bouquets of sheer delight which somehow seemed to complement the colonial blue painted woodwork.

All of this wonderment and charm of the previous owner was jammed into a small 3 feet by 9 feet space of a rustic and rugged log lodge setting. Lovely.

To keep myself from vomiting something had to be done quickly even if it was only a temporary fix. The images here show only the temporary fix.

Read more about the bathroom remodeling

I had been given this little refrigerator magnet of a twig deer head and thought it would look good life-sized and figured it would serve well as a rather whimsical way to greet guests to the lodge.

The charming but goofy looking little deer was of simple twig construction.

Read more about making a twig animal

One of the many tasks on the list here at the lodge is to replace a railing that had been removed yearsago on the second floor deck.

The 16′x16′ deck also serves as the roof for the master bedroom below.

The previous owners had removed the railing most likely at a time when they resurfaced the roof with a rubber membrane probably in an effort to waterproof.

The rubber roofing had eventually deteriorated, cracked and failed and I resurfaced it but this time with an asphalt material.

Read more about the log home railing

I get a lot of emails from readers asking questions about chinking. Recently a reader emailed me with regard to a project that he is planning. Using 1×10 boards with about a 2″ space in between he wants to create a log like wall with chinking between the boards.

The wall will be standard insulated construction with an exterior nail base on which he will nail into place the 1×10 boards. “Will your chinking mixture work?” yes.

The same chinking recipe,as noted in my previous posts, will work however the preparation of the surface - the positioning of grab nails will be a bit different. (please forgive my crude diagrams)

Read more about simulating a wall of chinking

It has come to the end of a long and productive week. Although I usually relax with a cup of coffee, this evening I’ll be enjoying conversation with good friends around the tap at the bar here at the Lodge where an inviting and refreshing glass of ice cold beer awaits.

The past several days of fine tuning designs and drafting new blue prints late into the evening and meeting with contractors for an upcoming renovation project of rather massive scale has left me numb. Yet I sit in calm. Soothed by the knowledge that my client that has fallen in love with the designs and progress.

Read more about plans for the workshop