J & J Log Home

Picked up our new pellet stove on Saturday, we decided on a Maxfire Santa Fe. Should be around 86% efficient & help allot with the heating bills. We are building a hearth in the corner for it to sit on & protect the floors/walls. First we put down some tape to get the outline, then a layer of foam to protect the hardwood, incase it ever is removed. Then 2 layers of 3/4" OSB. By the time we add the wire mesh, mortar scratch coat & stone, the vent should line up where I want it to go through the wall. Marley is supervising.... Here is the basic layout. We are waiting on some cultured stone to finish it off. It is a 'dry stack' look so you won't see grout lines. Should be interesting. Will also use some spare 4x10 leftover from our 2nd floor beams to make a mantle along the top. First fire! The stone place is dragging their feet on our order, so we installed the stove. It's pretty toasty in the house today & the electric furnace hasn't ran at

Say hello to 2010! No new pics, but stay tuned...we are planning to install a pellet multi-fuel stove in the near future. Should be an interesting project. So far the last few weeks have been interesting, found some mice (took care of that issue!), had a bat in the attic, found a water leak, & most recently discovered our deep freezer was plugged into a GFI...& it tripped without us knowing. Luckily not much in the freezer, but we did lose 2 nice New york steaks that would have been tasty....grrr. Here's some pics: This is where the leak came from (& the nice hole I had to cut in the wall to access it haha): Not bad for the first time I had to patch drywall....You can also see the trim piece that hides the gap from the drywall to the log wall. We have almost every piece done, just a couple left. They take forever to get a good fit.