Log Home in Disguise

“It’s just comfort. As soon as you come in it’s relaxation,” says Paul when asked what he likes most about living in a log home.

Open the door to this home in the middle of Paradise and the smell of cut wood washes over you. The long view is a stained glass door, framed by a corridor of pine walls. This is, quite evidently, a log home. But it’s one with a difference. From the outside, it looks like a regular clapboard house, with corner trim, vinyl windows, and a little plaque with a painting of a log home announcing who lives here.

When Paul and his wife sold their log cabin, they told themselves they’d have another one some day. Their cabin, which they really liked, was built by Adventure Log Homes under the guidance of owner Dean Abott. As Dean tells it, Paul’s dream of owning another log home became reality when the two had a chance meeting in the parking lot of a home improvement store.

They started talking about log homes, and Dean pulled out a new engineered log product he was now selling dubbed the Contemporary Super Log.

“I had a cross section of the log in the back of my truck, like a fella selling fish,” said Dean, retelling the story. The cross section showed the log’s clapboard-like exterior face and wood board interior face, made possible through the creation of a six-inch thick log made from kiln dried planks laminated together.

The log was designed to fit into an existing housing development where a traditional log home may look oddly out of place. For Paul, it was the perfect solution.

“It could go in next door and you’d never know it was a log home. But you still have the comfort of it,” said Paul, who sometimes has visitors who are surprised to find out it’s a log home once they step inside. And that’s just the way he likes it.

“I don’t think I’d ever go back to a conventional home,” he said, looking around his house.

It’s only the shell of the house that’s made of log, with the inside walls built like any other interior wall. But unlike most homes, Paul opted to go for a full wood look, paneling the walls with pine boards to match the look of the exterior walls. “The wood is more appealing to me than Gyproc,” he said.

In the living room, a large cultured stone fireplace built by Skinner’s Masonry provides a focal point for the room, while dark stained faux beams in the ceiling separate the room from the adjoining kitchen in the open concept main area of the home. The floors are a mix of engineered hardwood in the living room and porcelain tile with in-floor heating in the kitchen. The combination of stone fireplace, leather furniture, and wood surroundings creates a comfortable feel reminiscent of weekends at the cabin, which is exactly what Paul wanted.

“If you’re looking for comfort and tranquility in a home, this is the way to go,” said Paul of his log home in the middle of the city.