I'm building my own log home right now -- haven't stained it yet, but I'm definitely doing a light stain indoors -- I've seen too many that are way dark inside. http://www.permachink.com/company-news/wood-stain-colors - scroll to set of samples at the very bottom for interior quality stains -- I chose between butternut or light honey samples, and went with light honey, which I will coat with once. All the interior walls (ie, not exposed to the outside) will be sheetrocked, Other than the cathedral ceiling over the LR, DR and kitchen, the rest of the ceilings will be sheetrocked and painted a warm off-white. Since my logs will be light, I'm going with Sherwin-Williams "Global Spice" color palate - warm and earthy, but yes, some light tones in there. I'm staying away from deer and moose themes! (I'll have a Christmas stag out for maybe 3-4 weeks in the season, but it looks festive, not "deer season" hunting lodge.) My kitchen will be light quartz countertops, and the kitchen floor will be a light wood-look tile. (Which will contrast with a much darker pinewood floor throughout all the "dry" rooms.) I think both oil rubbed bronze and brushed nickel could look good for fixtures. You'll notice that the link above also sells stains in colors, which you may want to consider for cabinetry. You could paint trim white -- I'll be staining in wood finish, but my house sounds like it will be a lot lighter log-wise than your likely purchase. If you have to treat the wood (preserving) make sure you do the manufacturer's suggested full course of treatment. I've seen log homes while doing my research where no additional treatment was needed for 20 years (other than a six month apart bout with a good, long, feather duster).

I'm currently finishing up my log home construction. The thing is, area prices WILL vary. And perhaps what the log supplier company provides. Mine has provided the logs, the roof, the subfloor, the porch, windows, two of my exterior doors (I opted to upgrade the others), and the drafting work needed to adapt one of their plans to my needs. They were not responsible for any of the log staining, but pointed me at two reputable companies to choose from. My build is 2100 square feet. Anyhow, it's going to depend on your market, your layout, what kinds of finishes you want, and so forth. My contractor charged about double what the price of the shell was - my house is going a little over, not drastically, in part because I wanted quartz countertops, and because I decided to put in a couple rooms in the basement that I was going to worry about later (so as not to disrupt the cats when I do move), and because I will be adding in solar (which I'm contracting for, not the GC). But it all depends on what you what do do, how you want your home to look. There are way more challenges with a log shell. for example, electricians will have to bore through the logs to fish wire. Also cabinetry may have to be very custom, because you can't just hang a box off a curved surface and expect good results. My dad has a log cabin and while the shell was very reasonable, the finishing took forever and was very costly because so much had to be custom. It helps to know in advance where the light switches will be. They will design to pre-drill the logs for any switches, and the outlets in my house run along the baseboard. Obviously, pre-drill by any doors, and on the proper side! As for the kitchen,the exterior wall with the range on it is partially sheetrocked over that section of exterior wall, and they (GC and subs) attached cabinets to that, and did all their wiring so that area can't be seen, and it is effectively like any other house. So you can go IKEA or you can go custom for your cabinetry. (All my internal walls are sheetrock) But you do need to find contractors who know how to deal with the fact that logs, fresh logs, will shrink a little over the first few years. Indeed, my log company insisted I go through GCs that have had prior experience with log, whether their log or someone else's.

I'm going to look at this from a slightly different perspective: Sometimes being forced to sell a property like this is a blessing in disguise. We sometimes become so attached to our family after they are gone that we forget to live our OWN lives. apple_pie_order said it, don't spend your life trying to make dead people happy. It's ok to have some sentimental attachments. It's not ok when those attachments have us making bad life decisions. Keeping this house would be a bad life decision on multiple fronts: 1. You clearly can't afford to buy-out the co-owner and the extensive repairs that are needed. No shame or blame, but it's good to have a clear-headed idea of the total cost of keeping this home vs your resources. 2. The neighborhood has changed so completely that it's no longer hospitable for that property. 3. There is no longer any "intrinsic value" in the house as a log cabin. It has been so re-muddled and architecturally bastardized that the only value is the novelty of saying "there's a log cabin under all that". I know this is a shock to you, but it wasn't "lovingly restored..." what was done was a "modernization / re-muddle" job. A log cabin was turned into a 1950-60's suburban house complete with an attached garage and kitschy lawn decor. This was the style of that time and what the owners wanted. It's cute and has character - but it's not a "lovingly restored log cabin" by any stretch of the imagination. 4. Keeping the house would require major changes / sacrifices to your life: You would have to live with mold/decay/structural dysfunction or you would need to make life changes to create the income to rehab it. If you don't sell, those are your choices. It's not rent-able as-is either. 5. I feel pretty certain that this property would not ever be viable financially as a single family home. Investing in repairs and maintenance would not ever result in a property that would appreciate and be marketable at some point in the future. It will always be a tear-down. 6. The co-ownership has created a potential legal minefield (see below). 7. Most of all, I think the weight of the sentimental attachment, and the history behind the will and how that went down, is crippling you.

One other thought about window treatments -- if the idea is to introduce lots of light colored material onto the surfaces of the space to brighten it, then one strategy could be to use curtains that extend way past the window trim, covering more of the wall than usual. Typically the recommendation seems to be for drapes to extend 6-12 inches on either side of a window, but if you bent that "rule" and went a bit past the 12 inch mark, maybe the Houzz police would give you a pass! For the big three window bank, for example, I'd probably extend the curtain to the halfway point between the window edge and the wall and start the rod well above the window towards the ceiling. From the photo, it appears that there are sconces with the wiremold metal covering at the window edge, so you'd need to take that into account somehow. I might use shades at the windows for any times when you want to cover the windows and fabric sidepanel drapes from the sconce towards the corner, which would simply be decorative and never actually close over the windowglass. Curtain rods are made specifically for that kind of window treatment (see first photo).