An Indian-summer sun warms your skin as you ease into an aspen-wood rocker on the porch of your newly built mountain home. The smell of moss and pine hangs in the air, and the sound of a stream percolates in the distance.
Dream on.
The place to begin transforming your fantasy of owning a log home in the mountains into reality is the ninth annual Log Home & Timber Frame Expo, which pulls into Denver next week. The show promises hundreds of resources for people hankering for their own rustic dream home in Colorado – one of the top states in the country for log-home building. Here’s a taste of what this expansive event has to offer.
INSIDER’S ADVICE
Roland Sweet is the editor of Log Homes Illustrated magazine. He organizes a half-hour talk each morning of the expo that’s designed to help visitors get the most out of the event.
“The important thing,” Sweet said recently from his Virginia home, “is to take advantage of the fact that there’s so much there at one time.” Here are some of his other tips:
Bring a tote bag or rolling suitcase for the Paul Bunyan-esque quantities of handouts and swag visitors generally haul away from the expo.
Give yourself plenty of time to walk the floor, and take notes. “All these homes come unassembled,” he said. “That involves making a lot of choices, so the more you find out,” the better.
Remember that this is a sales environment. Each exhibitor will claim his or her product is the best, but it may not be the best for each log-home owner. “Try to find what’s right for you,” Sweet said. “Forget about what’s the best.”
HOMEGROWN LOGS
The Colorado company TJ’s Wood Products will erect a 1,500-square-foot log home from locally milled timber. The company specializes in lodgepole pine or Engelmann spruce from Colorado, according to sales and marketing director Tom Worley. TJ’s will bring its Glacier model home with saddle notch corners to the expo because it’s a popular look for second homes in Colorado. Worley added that the Glacier home generally costs between $250,000 and $275,000 to build, then has a resale value of up to $150,000 more than that. tjswood.com
BUCOLIC BEAUTY
Many mountain-home owners would hardly go to the trouble of designing and building a custom abode and then fill it with big-box-store details. That’s where craftspeople like James Andison come in.
This artist from Nelson, British Columbia, describes his own home as a “timber-frame, straw- bale house … on top of a mountain.” He grew his wood-carving hobby into a business in which he makes totem poles, carved trusses and original wood furniture primarily for log homes. “When I walk into a log or timber-frame house,” Andison said, “to me it’s just a blank canvas.”
FURNITURE FINDS
While custom furniture is one log- home decorating option, manufactured log furniture is another, less expensive one, according to Rustic Log Furniture president Randy Jackson. His company’s Alamosa factory produces about 1,200 pieces of aspen- wood furniture like the chair pictured above, which tend to appeal to mountain-home owners because of their natural materials and finishes. “Our furniture fits well with the log- home feel,” Jackson said. “People who like it really like it.”
MONEY TALKS
Any perception that it’s harder to finance a log or timber-frame home than a traditional “stick frame” home is inaccurate, according to Merrill Lynch financial adviser Leslie Pincombe, who will lead a log-home financing workshop at the expo. What the current mortgage crisis means to potential log-home owners is that banks will more closely scrutinize comparable properties to determine a project’s appraised value.
The challenge for someone who already has a site, building plans and a contractor is not securing financing but in finding similar properties – particularly in remote, undisturbed mountain areas – to prove their home’s potential value. “It’s very important that there are strong comparables right now,” Pincombe said, “otherwise that loan will get thrown back to the subprime market.”
BIG SAWS
Hud-Son Forestry Equipment salesman Dan Green of Broomfield will demonstrate the small logging equipment, sawmills and wood processing equipment required to cut dead-standing wood for building or forest fire prevention. Green said the shrill, theatrical wood-cutting demonstrations are always a big draw. “Everyone’s interested in a sawmill,” he said. “Women in particular like to run the mill.” hud-son.com
ARMOR STRENGTH
If assembling real log homes were as easy as those Popsicle-stick cabins we made in elementary school, there would be little need for the chinking technology Perma-Chink owner Rich Dunstan invented in 1982. Borrowing the term from the way medieval knights described wear and tear on their armor, “chinking” is the process of securing the logs. It was historically done with moss, then mud and straw, and finally cement mortar. But none of those were as good at withstanding the way that logs homes naturally settle as Dunstan’s polymer Perma-Chink product. “You get the look of traditional mortar chinking,” he said, “but it’ll stick so close to the log that the wood will actually break before the chinking gives way.” permachink.com
MILLED MILIEU
Milled logs are technologically superior to hand-hewn logs in terms of energy efficiency and fit, according to Mary Nelson of Evergreen’s Atrium Log Homes, which represents the popular Honka German-engineered logs, doors and windows. Honka, based in Finland, goes so far as to clinically test its logs against wind and driving rain.
“They are remarkable in their flexibility,” she said. “All of the logs are cut (with) computers that are actually linked to the saws.”
ARTISTRY OVER BUDGET
Tim Miller of Summit Handcrafted Log Homes in Idaho says someone who chooses handcrafted logs over milled logs is generally looking for something more distinctive and doesn’t mind paying more for it. “We incorporate art into the home,” he said.
KEY DETAILS
Among the myriad choices are what type of exterior corners will ultimately shape a log home’s look and feel. Companies like Lincoln Logs of New York tote several corner samples along to expos such as this. Sales director Mark Munzert describes notch-and-pass corners as looking something like putting one hand on top of the other in a T-shape; classic saddle notch corners as something that came out of Swedish design; and the smoother corner board as something ideal for being covered by faux stone.
“You’ll get a real indoctrination into log homes,” he said of the event, “and the variety of strategies and methodologies” used to build them.
Room editor Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
Log Home & Timber Frame Expo
This is the ninth year that this three-day showcase highlighting top log-home building resources and craftspeople comes to Denver.
When: Sept. 28-30
Where: Denver Merchandise Mart, 451 E. 58th Ave.
Admission: $15 for a three-day pass. This price also includes a one-year subscription to either Log Homes Illustrated magazine or Country’s Best Log Homes magazine.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 28; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 29.; and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 30.
Details: or 1-888-LOG-EXPO
