Brandi,
Your barn is realy looking good.
Did you pour concrete? I remember awhile ago that you were planing on pouring a pad, but don't remember anything else on it.
I never seen a log home with a blue roof, but it sounds interesting. Have you done any research on log homes in your area? Here, Satterwhite is probably the biggest log home builder with allot of them all over the area. Log homes are kind of funny around here. They don't sell really good and are more of a specialty market. For those who love them, they have them, but they are hard to sell.
I've also done some work on them and it's always the same thing. The pine rots where water sits. The Satterwhite homes have the D logs that overlap on the cornes. Every other log sticks out. The tops of those logs are flat and sometimes the porch or roofing lines up just right with the top log. This is where I've run into the worse rot. You don't see it or even think about it until your log is half rotted out from water sitting there, or soaking in, over a dozen years or so.
We also have allot of humidity here, and I think that adds to the rot issue. If you don't seal those logs on a regular basis, the areas you miss will start to rot on you. I've had to replace and patch logs on the sides of homes that were easy to see didn't get sealed properly. The homeowner said they sprayed on the sealer every other year, but with a little garden sprayer. I think they either did it too light, or just missed areas. I don't know as the damage was pretty bad to some of the logs and not too bad on others.
For light repairs, I just remove all the rot and fill with Bondo. I can blend the Bondo to look like the logs with layers of stain so it's not too noticable, but in other areas, I have to cut out the bad logs and replace them. That gets expensive.
Up in Oklahoma, we rented a log home that wasn't really a log home. It was stick built, but covereind in log looking lap siding. You still have to stain and seal the logs, but if one rots out on you, it's a simple task to replace them. Another advantage to them is they are not structural, so replacing them is even easier.
If I lived in a dryer climate, I'd build a log home. I am considering covering my home in Hardi Lap siding and staining it to look like real wood. I did this with my hot tub gazebo and it looks great. People don't realize that it's not real wood until I mention it to them. Even then, they touch it and feel it for themselves to make sure. I like to play a game and ask what type of wood do they think it is. Most will touch it and guess something, but never Hardi. It will never rot, it's fire resistant, and bug proof. The question is how long will the stain and seal last on it? Most log homes have to be redone every other year. If I can go that long, then I'm in the same boat as if I had used real logs. If I can go longer, then I'm ahead of the game, but still never have to worry about rot.
Eddie
