The main family room of Moriah was floored with an amazing grade of vintage heart-pine lumber. Some of these floor boards are 18 feet long and 14 inches wide. All of them are over an inch thick.

I made a few phone calls to firms that specialize in creating flooring from reclaimed beams to see if any could provide me with replacements in case I lost a few in salvaging Mariah… all cautioned me that I should keep my loss ratio to zero… that a replacement was not possible.

I ended up creating three new rooms within Moriah by eliminating the waste that came from the previous use of cathedral ceilings, and so, I needed additional flooring.

Originally posted 2015-04-05 14:46:51.

Here is the Master Bath… before and after we re-built Moriah.

We tiled the new bathroom in travertine stone, we then sponge painted the walls, and wrapped the tub in heat pipe so that it would always be warm to the touch in the winter.

There is a private view of the stream and the river from these windows. All that’s needed is a candle and some bath salts.

I don’t know what they were thinking when building the original bathroom (those 1970’s were strange times)… clearly they had a great love of natural wood. Perhaps they had fond memories of staying in one of those rustic cabins in a National Park?

But the wood in this bathroom was treasured by me, it is chestnut, which is very attractive and now an extinct species, making this a valuable material. We made use of it elsewhere in the house. I’ll post of an image of that use later today.

Originally posted 2015-04-05 13:39:26.

Here are a couple of photographs of the fireplace that I built in the family room of Moriah… and also included is one photograph of the fireplace as she was originally built.

As you can see I made some changes…

For one, I raised the hearth up off the floor to make it easier for people to enjoy the fire. We’ve had countless visitors choose to sit on this hearth upon their arrival on a cold day.

Second I eliminated the odd wood blocking at the top and chose not to carry the stone all the way to the ceiling. I wanted to leave a space above the fireplace for a painting or family photo.

And third, I chose to refine the stone work. I didn’t care for the roughly built field-stone look.

Originally posted 2015-04-04 17:39:33.

We have wooden sidewalk at Moriah.

Every time I walk down that sidewalk I think of my daughter.

From my earliest days I had always had the desire to one day have a daughter. My mother used to tell me that that would never happen… that our family was incapable of having anything but boys.

Originally posted 2015-04-04 16:37:12.

Here are two final images of the kitchen, both looking back into the log cabin dining room.

The difference in lighting is not nearly as dramatic between these two rooms as my photography would indicate… but the photos do show the symbiotic relationship these two rooms have with each other.

Each room serves it’s function perfectly. And, each room needs the other.

Visitors to the home are drawn back and forth from one room to the other… each room pulls at the spirit. The one balances the other.

Laughter is often heard in the kitchen. And then whispers are often spoken in the cabin. There is a hustled pace in the kitchen and then people slow down when they enter the dining room.

Balance has been achieved.

Originally posted 2015-04-04 15:28:05.

At the far end of the kitchen we created a little breakfast nook area. It’s a great place to share a meal with close family or friends.

(maybe, that should read… “share a meal with family or close friends?” 🙂

On nice days we’ll open the french doors and take in some fresh air along with our food. That’s good for the digestion.

Originally posted 2015-04-04 15:09:52.

I think that by using the same antique pine joists in the kitchen as were found in the dining room cabin that I helped smooth the transition from one room to the other.

We installed a wide variety of lighting in the kitchen to enable many different combinations of light. Turn them all on and I can do surgery on any turkey with the skill of a surgeon. Or, turn on just the under-the-counter lights for a more gentle mood.

One of my favorites are the above-the-cabinet lights which create a warm glow at night when the light bounces off of those ceiling beams.

Originally posted 2015-04-04 14:52:28.

I do love bar-stools in a kitchen.

To me they are more comfortable than a typical kitchen chair. And, I like being up in the air, at eye level to those folks unlucky enough to not get one of the two bar-stools here at Moriah. 😉

From where these stools are located I can watch everything going on, from keeping an eye on the cook, to gazing out the windows towards the garden, and then on to the waterfall of the Advance Mills dam.

Originally posted 2015-04-04 14:31:45.

Here are a couple of photographs showing the log cabin of Moriah as she was this past Christmas, now serving the home as a dining room.

The third photo of the room (unfurnished) shows all the natural light pouring in from the new kitchen… we’ll go into that room tomorrow. 🙂

One final thing I’d like to point out as we leave this room…

I changed the exterior door from a nice solid wood door to one that had glass panes in it to let in more natural light. That was a tough call for me to make. It would have been more historically accurate to have left the solid door, but I thought the newer door looked fine once installed and it certainly added more light to the room. Thoughts?

Originally posted 2015-04-03 16:20:28.

I nominate this ktichen for the title of…

“The Worst Kitchen Ever”…

What went wrong?

It was built by wealthy individual, with an unlimited budget, who hired a world renown architect, and was built by a quality builder.

The kitchen was located in the physical center of the home and it’s cabinetry was made out of expensive, rare, wood. There was a Viking gas stove and a Sub Zero refrigerator.

How could this have gone so wrong? Given these ingredients I could have produced a kitchen that would have been featured on the covers of multiple home magazines.

So, what happened?… they broke Rule Number One… “Never, ever, build a modern kitchen inside of an old log cabin”. The two, are polar opposites.

A log cabin is place of security, warmth, calmness… a place of retreat from the hectic the world we live in. Log cabin’s make great dens, bedrooms, dining rooms, even a home office. A kitchen on the other hand is a place of energy, of activity, of noise, and creation.

And, a log cabin is a naturally dark place. I have to employ techniques when I build to brighten them as much as possible… such as painting the ceiling boards between the floor joists. Here we see the addition of natural finish cabinetry has turned this place into a cave.

A kitchen should be bright… full of natural light, with tall ceilings and plenty of windows. If you have to turn a light on every time you enter the kitchen something is terribly wrong.

One final thought… if you want a log cabin as part of your home, why would you want to cover those logs up with cabinetry?

So, when I rebuilt Moriah I reused those heart pine kitchen cabinets in the garage. Yes, this house has one mighty fine storage area for tools.

I chose to convert this log room into a dining area… now the center of this home is the place the family gathers to feast. And the kitchen… well, I created a new one in an adjoining room… one that is full of light.

Originally posted 2015-04-03 15:59:22.