Log

Country’s Best

Homes® The ULTIMATE Guide to Buying and Building a Milled Log Home

✻ABOUT THE COVER: Today’s log-home great rooms combine cozy ambience with soaring spaciousness, as seen in this Colorado home. Photo by Matt Krane.

e-mail us at countrysbestloghomes@fwpubs.com

March 2009

SPECIAL SECTION: GREAT ROOMS

66 Décor: The Rustic Hearth

Log-home fireplaces maintain their rustic charm with new flexibility

and functionality. BONUS: A look at new hearth products.

70 Grand Central: 8 Great Room Trends

Strategies to help you build a better great room. BONUS: When to

incorporate trusses and how to make open space livable.

75 Favorite Plans: Great Rooms

Listed smallest to largest, producers pick their favorite great room

plans for log homes of any size.

106 Finishing Touch: Getting Warmer

A pictorial guide to novel heating solutions.

36 Tour: The Rustic Retreat

A Georgia couple builds a new lakeside log retreat on the footprint

of an old cabin. BONUS: Recycling to create a new island counter.

44 Tour: Sense of Seclusion

A Michigan hybrid log home is built from an amalgam of national

and international ideas. BONUS: Adding color in a log home.

52 Tour: Historic Inspiration

Connections from the past help create an award-winning log home

for the future in West Virginia.

60 Tour: An Open House

A Wisconsin family chooses a plan with plenty of windows — then

adds more. BONUS: Putting the “wow” in prow.

to visit a

STORIES, COLUMNS, TOURS

home our

10 Special Report: Turnkey Solutions

seminar?

ents listings

A close look at the many advantages of start-to-finish

w.loghomes

log homes and the factors involved in pricing.

m/events!

16 Retrospective: The Victorian Log Home

A North Carolina log home gets a third-story upgrade.

TENNESSEE LOG HOMES

20 Money Matters: 5 Financing Challenges

The must-know steps to getting a home construction loan in today’s

economy.

28 How To: 8 Secrets to Maximize Space

Save money in your log home by understanding where the costs

lie. BONUS: Some areas in your home you can maximize during the

design stage, and areas you can minimize.

30 Cabin Fever: Building a Retirement Cabin A couple searches throughout the Rocky Mountains for a site on which to build a retirement retreat. BONUS: New cabin lines, break- ing out additional cabin costs, and how to make your cabin look bigger 64 (or smaller).

HILLTOP LOG HOMES

ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOG HOMES

10 16 30 64

GOLDEN EAGLE LOG HOMES

PRECISIONCRAFT

DEPARTMENTS

6 EDITOR’S VIEW Big improvements in the May issue.

78 FLOOR PLANS The best plans in the business.

Check out www.loghomesnetwork.com to find more than 400 floor plans, dozens of home tours, log-home FAQs, and more!

Country’s Best Log Homes (ISSN 1089-3466) is published bimonthly by Krause Publications, a division of F+ W Publications, Inc., 700 E. State St., Iola, WI 54990, 715-445-2214. Periodicals Rate postage paid, at Iola, WI, and at additional mailing

offices. Country’s Best Log Homes, Volume 14, Number 2 © 2008-09 by F + W Publications, Inc., all rights reserved. Copyrights to stories and illustrations are the property of their creators. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in

whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. Subscription Services, Back Issues and Information: Phone 866-700-2995 or 386-246-3426 or write to Country’s Best Log Homes Circulation, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142. Single

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READER SERVICES

18 FREE RESOURCES

95 BUILDER/DEALER DIRECTORY

References:

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