The Good & Plenty Upstairs Powder Room

Yes, that is “Good & Plenty” pink-and-white paneling in the powder room! This powder room is actually a closet that someone converted to a (very!) small bathroom! the previous owners covered all the logs with paneling. This is how the room (closet!) looked when we bough the cabin in 2009.

February 2010: Ripping out the paneling to expose the logs

In February 2010, Brian asked me what I wanted for Valentines Day… I told him I wanted the Good & Plenty GONE! … so on February 14, 2010, we began the first phase of the upstairs powder room!

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Ripping out the tile floor in my slippers… haha!
Making a bit of a mess!

After we ripped the paneling out, Brian installed a new toilet, and I refinished the logs and chinking, and installed a new floor so that we could use this “toilet/sink room” if needed. This is how the powder room remained for 11 years until we could do the next phase. Directly on the other side of that wall behind the toilet is another closet where the previous owners installed a stall shower…crazy, right?!

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Stall shower in adjacent closet (gross!):

 Ever since we moved in we used the first floor master bathroom as our main bathroom and wondered if there was a way to marry the “shower” closet with the “toilet/sink” closet and somehow make it a functional (and more normal!) bathroom. I had formulated plans in my mind of busting through the wall behind the toilet, and bumping out one of the other walls to allow for a pocket door, but we didn’t know if what I had dreamt-up would even be possible. What Brian and I did know was that this job would be way beyond our capabilities, and we would have to wait until we could seek out the advice of a contractor.

Almost 11 years later, in January 2021, my plan came together. Brian and I were ready to seek out someone to survey the job, and we shared my idea with a friend and local contractor,  J.Reynolds Custom Homes and Renovations who said it actually was doable!

Breaking through the wall to join the 2 closets

Shower closet gutted – looking into the toilet/sink room:

What was the shower closet now gutted

Gutting the adjacent shower closet

Busting through the original walls to create the new angle of the outer wall

Build-out of the new outer wall

Outer wall completed

Floor installation

Marrying the 2 closest together

Vanity

I’m disappointed that I never took a “head-on” photo of the original vanity…but you can get an idea of what it looked like from the first photo in the below set:

Toilet/Shower area

Project completed!

We now have a full bathroom upstairs with the shower, toilet and vanity all in one room!

First shower in the new shower

Although Limoncello (below left) was the first to actually walk into the shower, she declined and gave the first shower actual to Sweet Reet.

Margarita christened our new shower in April of 2021, just two months before she gained her angel wings.

Miscellaneous construction photos along the way

The Kitchen

The kitchen has been the longest-running project.  We built the cabinets all by hand – with no plans to follow, and no idea what we were doing!  We get complements on them constantly – they really came out great – and fit right in with our cabin!

The kitchen is mostly completed as of today (11/16/2013)…but we still need to complete the ceiling (we are going to do a tin ceiling), get hardware for the cabinets, and complete the chinking on 3 walls of the kitchen and adjoining pantry.

The kitchen when we originally looked at the house…

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The kitchen during the demolition…

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Building the cabinets

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…and the kitchen as of 11/16/13

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Copper farm sink…Brian’s pick!

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Other end of the kitchen

Adjoining pantry/laundry room (still needing the chinking in between the logs down as well as the ceiling)

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2019

Chinking (white stuff!) getting done in the kitchen:

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2018:  The “tin” ceiling going up!

 

 

2019

 

Kitchen Wall

One of the walls in our kitchen was nothing but rotted logs (from old roof leakage) and  a very tiny window.  We had the logs on hand, but hadn’t gotten around to replacing the wall. Friends of ours called us one morning to tell us they were removing a large window from their home to replace with a larger window, and that they thought we may be able to use it…well, it was a perfect size, and we dropped what we were doing that day, and ripped out the wall and old window!

Rotted logs and old window removed
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New window in and trimmed, and new logs installed…just need to stain the logs, and chink in between logsphoto 2 (1)

2019:  Farm table and chinking/trim complete

The Bar

More paneling on walls and ceiling to rip out… this room was a “treat”…we discovered to bats behind the paneling while ripping it out…quite the experience – and something I will NEVER forget!

The bar before…

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Bye Bye paneling….!IMG_2339

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Bats…YIKES! Brian brought them safely out of our house!

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With the paneling gone, it’s on to stripping the bark off the logs, sanding them down, staining the logs, securing loose wires, repairing the chinking, and painting the chinking!IMG_2345

The exposed ceiling in the bar…

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The bar after all the staining and painting…DSC08563

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Wood Carvings Inside and Outside the Cabin

We love wood carvings!  Have you ever seen someone carve a tree stump with  chain saw into a work of art?  If not – it’s a must-see!  These people are really talented!  Here are some of our cabin “residents”….

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Brian surprised me with this one for Christmas one year!

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This guy awaits visitors as they make their way to our lakeDSC08578

This was the first carving we ever bought.  This bear keeps us company in the lodge room.DSC08572

Brian gave me this one for our 2013 Anniversary gift.  This bear watches over Cello and Loki’s water and food bowls.  You can see behind the bear that part of our kitchen wall is not yet completed with the white chinking…
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This little guy can be seen “climbing” up a tree in our front yardDSC08591

Wood Burning

Brian came home from Home Depot one day and said he had bought me a surprise…a wood burning tool that was on clearance… he thought maybe I could do some burnings on some of the logs in the house. …With great fear of sparking a flame on such  “seasoned” wood, I gave it a try anyway.  The result was a pleasant surprise!  The burnings looked really cool! I think the burnings make for nice, subtle details that are discovered sometimes by accident by visitors to our cabin.

Goose in the kitchen

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Bass in lodge room

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Indian by stairwayIMG_2814

Bass in the making…IMG_2812

Turtle in the Lodge Room

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Lodge Room

Originally, the lodge room walls and ceiling were covered with painted-white paneling, and the ceiling was dropped down far enough where we could reach up and touch it.  (The actual original height of the lodge room is 21 feet). You could only see half of the 2 story stone fireplace.  After we tore all the paneling off, we had to strip the logs of the bark (by hand), sand the logs, stain the logs, re-run the wires to hide them, repair the chinking (white stuff in between the logs), and paint the chinking… it was quite the project!!  In the middle of us doing this project, we had people asking us where we are living when all this is going on… the look on their faces when we told them we were living “right here!” in the middle of this construction zone was hysterical!

Lodge Room fireplace before…
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Ripping out the paneling…

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Windows behind the paneling! Awesome…light!IMG_1439

 

 

After the ceiling was exposed, the logs were stained, and the chinking was painted…IMG_2868

 

Lodge Room Wall

When we first moved in , I kept hearing “noises” in the lodge room…after some careful inspection, and some helpful hints from our cat, Loki, we discovered a family of squirrels were living in between the  paneling and the logs.  We trapped the squirrels and relocated them (mom and 3 “kids”), and removed the paneling…to find that we were left with a log wall that hand been gnawed down, where you could see through to the outside!  With some help from family and friends, we removed a window, replaced the chewed logs with new ones, and reset the window.

Lodge Room wall with chewed logs

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Lodge Room wall after all the work…

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Upstairs Middle Room

This is another “Good-n-Plenty” pink room to match the bathroom!  I couldn’t WAIT to rip this paneling down!  When we did rip this paneling down, we had a couple of unexpected discoveries… a fully intact mouse skeleton (I’ll spare you the sight, and leave that picture out!), and an inactive but huge bee hive…aaah,  the surprises keep coming!

This picture was taken after we had ripped down the drop-ceiling to expose the beams

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Bee hive

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This picture was taken in the middle of the job, while we were still taking paneling down on another wall, but here you can see the logs have already been stripped of the bark beofre the paneling covered them – – so one less step down the line for us…YIPEEEEE!

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Porch

The 40 foot porch overlooking the lake had been screened in, and the log railings had been replaced by a plywood wall. We wanted to restore the porch to it’s original form – log railings.  We asked around town about where we could buy logs, and we were connected with a man named “Spike”…he still operates the saw mill where the original logs of this home were milled!  Generations of his family harvested cedar trees, milled them at their saw mill, and carted them by horse and buggy down the main street of our town, to the log homes that were being built here!  It was great getting some more history about our home and community from Spike!

Porch Before…

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Porch After…

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First Project – The Roof

Why start anything inside when we have a leaky roof, right?  The first project we decided to tackle, was one of the biggest – and one that we could not tackle ourselves… the roof.  This project was quite the eye opener…a lesson learned with log cabins…no project is easy, quick, or inexpensive…and ALL projects, no matter how small, lead into 5 other projects!

We wanted the roof to look original – which meant tearing off all the layers (all 4 of them!) and insulating the roof from the exterior so that the original log beams and tongue-and-groove ceiling could be exposed in the lodge room.  What we found was that from the leaking, most of the roof was rotted – and had to be torn off! …I can’t even describe the pit in my stomach when the roofers told us the “the whole thing” was coming off… the sky’s the limit! …

 

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I’m sure the neighbors “loved” us with all the debri that was around the house for the MONTH it took to do this job!

(original estimation from roofers was 1 week!)

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After the exterior was torn off, looking up in the lodge room was like looking up at an old barn ceiling!
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Tearing out the paneled ceiling and walls in the lodge room…so that the roofers could see the roof from the inside and install the skylights.
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Finally done!IMG_1602

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Cello’s Cabin… “Beadling’s Windy Spot”

PAN July 2010In 2009 we bought our dream home – on a whim – and totally unprepared for what was in store for us.  We used to have conversations about what our dream home would be, what it would “have to have,” etc.  Well, one day, we stumbled across our ultimate dream home…a log cabin on a lake…with all the “requirements” on our once fantasy dream-home list… except it wasn’t quite in “dream-home” shape…and it didn’t quite look much like a log cabin!…

The home we purchased was a real cedar log log home, built in 1927.  It is built on a double lot, with a 2-car log constructed garage.  Some time over the years, the original logs AND ceilings of the entire home were covered over by painted-white paneling.  The original hardwood floors were covered with rug…It was infested with mice, flying squirrels (yes FLYING) – and bats (YIKES)…(all of which we finally were able to safely remove and relocate). The cabin also had an entire log wall whittled down to toothpicks  by the family of (regular) squirrels living between the paneling and logs (family of squirrels also safely relocated!).   …Aaaah…with  the adventures we encountered…I could have written a book!

Our goal: Restore it back to it’s original glory…expose all the logs, fix all the chinking (white stuff in between the logs), and make some upgrades along the way – all “DIY” style…ON OUR OWN! …  My thought at the time was “No problem!” … I swore we’d be done the home in it’s entirety in 3 years… what I quickly came to realize is that we had just purchased a life-long project! Although frustrating at times,  it has truly been one of the most rewarding things Brian and I have ever done.  The memories we have created here, both inside the home, and out on the lake, are priceless!

Posts to follow are just SOME of the things we have demolished, built, and restored!

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