Wayne and Carol Bredvik
ON A GOLDEN POND

“I think we went back to the Real Log Homes model owned by David Allaire of C.M. Allaire & Sons a half a dozen times,” Wayne continues, “in order to study the appearance, engineering, and quality control aspect of the home. We decided on Real Log Homes and selected their 8-inch contoured log.”

Wayne studied the Real Log Homes package and, being an architect, readily became familiar with the assembly system. “It wasn’t all that difficult for me,” he says. “After putting pencil to paper I designed a story-and-a-half Cape Cod of approximately 2,256 square feet.”

The home would capture the beauty of the lake, its long dimension of 65 feet parallel to the shore. According to Wayne, the entire process was pretty straightforward: “I drew up the working plans and the company did the engineering drawings for the total weathertight shell.”

Two semi-trailers loaded with the wrapped and bundled log home package delivered their cargo to a local lumberyard on a sunny morning in May 2000. For a small fee, the lumberyard transferred the bundles to smaller boom trucks capable of negotiating the local narrow country roads and drove them to the building lot.

Wayne already had the walkout basement foundation prepared. “I hired Tucker Mountain Homes, a local log home builder, to erect the shell. Because I was the site manager for the project and would oversee the entire construction process, I was always there. Actually, I lived out of a tent next to the lake until the house took shape. One evening, as I hear from the neighbors, a black bear strolled along the bank leaving footprints in the sand. Luckily, I wasn’t in the tent at the time,” Wayne says, sounding relieved.

It took six weeks to erect the shell and make it weathertight. “We would have put up the shell more quickly, except that we had so much rain,” Wayne relates. “Actually, the assembly was very straightforward and everything fell into place like clockwork.” The entire construction process, including the site work, foundation, shell, roof, and interior finish trim, took about two years.

Once the shell was in place, Wayne did all the interior work himself. “It wasn’t particularly daunting since I fancy myself a fairly capable amateur carpenter, plus I’ve had considerable construction management experience.” Working alone, however, did lengthen the construction time, Wayne acknowledges.

The joinery used in the Real Log Homes system provides a very tight seal. Because the logs dry slowly, the fully contoured logs fit snugly, drying tightly in place together. “There’s very little visible checking that I’ve noticed thus far,” says Wayne.

Carol came up whenever she could. “We moved from the tent by the lake into the basement where we ate on a makeshift sawhorse table, then onto the main level, adapting to each space as the house grew,” she says.

Two years is a long time to work on a house, but ask the Bredviks and they’ll tell you they wouldn’t have wanted the experience any other way.

The couple complemented one another, Carol choosing all of the interior furnishings while Wayne tackled the structural components. “I worked by myself for the most part but did hire someone to help me with the 14-foot second-floor partitions. The wiring, plumbing, heating, and drywall work performed by friendly and skillful local contractors went well. Flooring, kitchen, baths, interior doors, and trim work went more slowly but with no surprises.

One thing I designed that has really made a difference was a joined shed dormer and gable dormer, which is located over the front entrance foyer, and which really lights the area up,” says Wayne. “In addition, the combination creates a rather interesting exterior front elevation. You don’t see this type of design very often and everyone loves it,” says Wayne.

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