We're getting close. Hoping to move in about 2 months. Working on 1 bathroom, painting, plumbing, some electrical, and lots of clean up in preparation for an inspection. This is a 100% DIY cabin design and build - foundation to roof; no background in construction; built mostly with hand-tools (block and tackle); debt-free building.

The balcony and stair railing is installed. Posts are oak 4x4's (balcony) and 5x5's (stairs). Rebar is 1/2" (no. 4), and the top and bottom rails are pine. I milled the oak I was going to use for the railings too short. maybe I'll switch out the pine for oak down the road. Blog post here: https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/2023/02/27/stair-and-balcony-railing/

Joy by Apollo 100 (1971), based on J.S. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Played on a Yamaha piano and an 1890 pump organ by my wife and me.

Got the stair railing installed (hard) - still need to do the balcony railing (easy). Not screwed to the posts yet; still deciding how to attach. Made from 1/2" rebar painted flat black and 2x4's for now. I might change the rails over to oak if I can get enough milled and drying, but we want to move in sooner rather than later.

Got the main drain run in the trench all the way to the road. ~ 180 feet. Now just need to fill in some low spots with sand and call the city to connect it.

You have to test your DWV system for leaks before it will pass inspection, or sometimes the inspector wants to see it tested. Either way, there are two ways to test - a pressure test with air (less messy, more expensive test equipment) or just silicone little caps on all the drain openings or place rubber plugs in them, then fill the whole system with a garden hose (usually through the vent on the roof). While building my system, I put a little T-connector with a removable plug right before the system exits the house to the roof just for this test so I didn't have to climb on the roof to test it. Then you plug the end, and fill it with water and check for leaks. Probably over a hundred gallons for mine.

I milled some red oak into 5"x5" (newel) posts and 4"x4" (guard rail) posts, and am test fitting them in place. I cut down through the floor - these posts will be bolted to the 4x12 joists and the side of the stair stringers to make them extra secure.

Our blue Heeler knows chickens taste good, but he also knows he's not allowed to chase them. Here he is backing down from a challenge (he knows better).

This is the last time I'm sanding these logs. They've been peeled, powerwashed, sanded, buffed, and now I'm sanding them one more time. If we could've built faster, I would've peeled them, then poly'd them. But it took over a year to stack them, and they got a little weathered in between.

This RPSL is one of 3 that support the 70,000 lb roof. It's about 20" diameter, and about 27' tall. It is secured to the log wall with eith 1/2" all-thread pieces about 36" long - one piece of all thread, every other log. In this video, I show how to countersink the nuts and washers without removing the all-thread.

My dog killing a rope to the tune of Lego Ninjago theme song

Giving my wiring a try. It's 22' to the ceiling, and I don't want to climb back up there anymore. :)

Walking up the stairs I finished. blog: https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/stairs-part-iii-putting-it-all-together/
- Oak treads from a "curb find" tree
- 3"x16"x16' live edge Oak Stringers from a tree I slabbed

Once the strips have been planed, they can be glued and clamped and set aside to dry.

Once the glue is dry, the whole tread can be planed flat. I only got one pass in this video, but in reality it takes about 10 - 15 passes to get it perfectly flat. Planer only removes 1/128" at a time.

Once the strips are ripped, they need to be planed so the edges are perfectly flat

I retrieved an oak log from a friends house on the side of the road, milled it into 1.5" thick slabs and let it dry from May 2021 - January 2022. Now cutting it into 2.5" strips for stair treads.

A weather report from Lumpkin County

Goes along with this post: https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/2021/12/18/restoring-an-old-wood-stove/. Very easy to do. I couldn't find very many videos on this, so I made one. You can cut mica with scissors.

https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/2021/12/21/building-a-hearth-for-the-wood-stove/

I couldn't believe it when I saw a video of a guy in England cutting bricks with a chisel - but it works.
I'll throw in a dog freaking out in the background for no extra charge.

I haven't posted a video for a while - I was using a Pinephone (linux) - waiting for video to start working on it, but gave up and went back to an android camera for videos. Chinking is done, outside is done, 1st floor framing is done, working on the chimney for a wood stove, brick hearth, and stairs.

Hospital admin claims "we need to be more scary" about covid. Huh? So it IS just FearPorn. lol. original source (unless it gets removed): https://twitter.com/i/status/1436466927703138308. This was in North Carolina with a marketing director and doctors. Oh, and they discussed counting recovered patients as active covid cases. Stay away from hospitals. More info in this story: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-zoom-video-exposes-hospital-officials-discussing-covid-19-scare-tactics

So much talent! https://ryanshupe.com/

Friend of mine from college.

CBS news - I stole this clip from someone else (not sure why folks only post to fb?)
Only rescuing people vaccinated against Covid

I go through the steps to apply traditional cement mortar / chinking to a log cabin - insulation, nails, mixing the mortar using portland cement, sand, and lime. Then I apply the chinking and clean up. Nice finished chinking will last a lifetime and looks beautiful on natural raw logs. Here's the blog post: https://loghomejourney.wordpress.com/