We bought a log home years ago in Pennsylvania. I liked it for about a year. Some of the interior walls in the bedrooms were finished with drywall halfway up to the ceiling which was nice because I could hang things on the walls without using cardboard behind them to straighten them out. Our living room was 20 feet high with log beams running across and one day when I was in the loft I noticed how dusty they were. Then I noticed how dusty the log walls were. A nightmare to clean, the only redeeming factor was the previous owner had finished all of the interior logs with linseed oil so they were pretty smooth even though they were hand peeled logs. Depending what part of the country you are in the exterior maintenance consists of clear wood finish or oil finish and it does wear off with weather conditions. In ten years we had it done four times. Termites love them and so do wood boring wasps. I would suggest doing a lot of research.

We recently bought a different weekend lake home (future retirement home) and in the course of looking around for about a year, we looked at a few log homes. I did a bit of research on them and decided against it. You need to be very on top of the maintenance or you can get into serious problems with rot, insects, etc. I also thought it would be a nightmare to try to keep those horizontal log surfaces dusted and relatively clean. Fortunately we found a beautiful timber frame home instead.

I found this houzzers idea book on modern log cabin ideas. I don't know anything about the maintenance issues. I would say that one of the main things that makes a log cabin look more modern is a break from all that wood. So dry wall for walls or painted ceilings or something.

We just sold our log home in Western PA. We lived there 15 years and raised our 2 children in the home. It had a LOT of wood which was just clear coated yellow pine. Over the years it darkened considerably. The biggest draw backs were:

1) The exterior MUST be maintained. Failure to do so will result in rot, insects and other nasties. We used Sikkens Cetol on the exterior which did on good job, but is quite expensive. Even with a quality product, we found that certain exposures had to be re-coated every other year, and the entire house at least every 3 years. The newer, lower VOC products which are now available did not last as well.

2) Though not dark, the wood on every wall and ceiling is monotonous. You can't just put on a new coat of paint and change the look of the room.

3) If not properly built/maintained by PO, there is a strong likelyhood of severe insect infestations inside the house. We tended to get wasps/hornets in ours as they would work their way into any crack they could find on the exterior and then migrate to the nice cozy interior.

4) Depending on your location and available heating fuels, they can either be comparable to a similarly size traditional home to heat or they can be a money pit.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

I think that "modern, bright, and clean" can be hard to achieve in a log cabin, which tend to be dark, but cozy. You will probably want to look for one that has a drywall interior, instead of all log, and lots of windows.

My parents bought a log cabin this past summer, so I have some saved inspiration pics, but none of our cabin, unfortunately. We found you need much brighter, saturated colors, and lots of white and reflective surfaces to stand up to all the wood.

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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 love wood, esp. old wood, but too much can be very oppressive. I'd suggest that, at the very least, you have the ceilings in the logs and the walls in wallboard, but not both.

I agree with the others. We built a beautiful weekend log home about 9 years ago, and sold it a few years ago. The outside maintenance is continuous, and expensive. We also battled the wood boring wasps. Only our exterior walls were log; our interior walls were drywall, which I would highly recommend. Our logs were a little rough, so dusting was difficult, as well. I did decorate with a more "woodsy" feel, such as a fantastic Currey & Co pine and pine cone chandelier (I still miss it), but not a thematic design. Ours had a soaring tongue and groove ceiling with a wall of windows, and tons of windows on all sides, so it was always very light-filled and not dark at all. I think I could have brought a cleaner, more modern aesthetic to it, and it would have looked very elegant.

We looked at a log home for a vacation home. I was against it for maintenance and brightness reasons -- I found out, to my dismay, it's not recommended that you paint the interiors of the logs white as paint won't allow them to breathe.

asked my favorite home inspector about log homes and his advice was "they need a lot of love, a lot of the time." I think if you truly love them, it's worth the work, but they can be a lot of work. And we don't live in a termite area.

Pine also bleeds badly through paint, namely the knots. You have to put boatloads of BIN or KILZ on before you even paint. So don't paint pine logs.

Thanks all for such great input. We were gone all day today up looking at places we were interested in. I'm not too concerned with the maintenance myself. That will be hubby's bailiwick. At this point making such a place comfy for my aesthetic is my concern. One of the places we saw today had the tradition log and chinking style which I preferred as it broke up the wood. That house also had a number of really high window and a couple of sky lights which made it really really bright inside, I was totally shocked. Hard to see from the pics but it was really light and bright even though it was a bit cloudy.

As you can see, job one would be to re-do the kitchen. I won't change the footprint but will upgrade to bigger cabinets in a white or cream or green and get rid of the table and add an island.

When we built, we built for energy efficiency (solar panels, passive solar design, closed cell insulation, geothermal heating/cooling, wood stove, etc). Log cabin walls do not meet typical minimum R-value building standards. I think, regardless of environment, building for energy efficiency is a good idea. I imagine the mountains, wherever that is, can get some good weather extremes so it would be a key consideration for me...not only from the green point of view, but also from the comfort of living in the house...a well built, well insulated house that is designed to suit the environment is simply more comfortable to live in. Moreover, from a limited retirement budget point of view, controlling heating/cooling costs is a good thing. I prefer it to what my retired friends do... control their energy costs by being cold all winter and hot all summer.

We built on a southern facing slope with the house built into the hill so we can get the sun exposure on 2 stories on the south side but only one story exposure to the north. Citing and positioning a new house correctly is one of the most important things as, after you build, you can always swap out a sink or move a wall, but you're not going to pick up the building and reorient it. I think moving to the moutains would be a perfect opportunity to add solar gain , and view considerations to your new home.

As we were building for our retirement, we also wanted low maintenance. We did not want to spend our retirement years and limited budget on supporting the building...we'd rather it went to us. It's something else you might want to consider.

My cousin had a log cabin he built himself but (no more) and it was a LOT of wood and monotony.

The house you are considering is lovely, and there is lots you can do with it. Also -- that land is great!

I do agree the R factors aren't as great in log homes as in most other styles of house.