The Ponderosa

This is our home, a 2-story Colorado Spruce log home located in Denham Springs, 13 miles east of Baton Rouge, La.

My Better Half and I decided last spring to completely remodel the home, inside and out. What an undertaking!!

We started off by bringing in one of those PODS contraptions, which sat in our driveway for 2 months. Into that PODS contraption, we moved everything out of our home - I mean EVERYTHING!

Our options were to either rent an off-site storage room and store it all, which would require actually moving all our furniture to the storage facility - or bring in a PODS contraption and park it at the end of the driveway, which meant we only had to carry it all out the door and into the PODS contraption. We opted for the PODS contraption.

At our age, it damn near killed us both! We did enlist the occasional assistance from our 2 sons-in-law to help with some of the big stuff, but I can promise you My Better Half and I are way to old to be moving every piece of furniture out of our home!

But that's what we did.

We started with all new carpet throughout the house, which actually only took 2 days to have done. The next steps to the remodel job included all new floors, countertops, backsplashes, toilets, ceiling fans (of which we have 11), a new kitchen sink (which my son-in-law installed while I was out of town), and floor moulding (which My Better Half and I - along with our oldest daughter, Allyson - stained ourselves).

We then purchased new furniture for the entire home and had it moved in. Our old stuff we either gave to the kids, donated to charity, or hauled away to our friendly neighborhood landfill.

A lot of it went to the landfill.

We then contracted a log home restoration company in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin to do a total makeover of the outside of our log home. This was a job that involved a corn cob blasting of the entire home, which left mounds and mounds of tiny bits of corn cob piled up outside our home - not to mention all the particles of corn cob that ended up INSIDE our home due to the blasting process!

Once the blasting was complete, 2 coats of borate were sprayed on the logs. The borate kills mold, mildew, critters and all the fungus among us. After the critters, mildew and fungus among us were treated, 2 coats of stain were applied to the entire exterior of our home. The final step involved caulking between every log on the home to ensure a good seal to help eliminate drafts, as well as tiny spaces for critters to gain entrance to our home.

My Better Half HATES critters in the house!

The restoration process took just over a month to complete and the job was completed just days before Christmas, 2009.

Fun...? NO! Worth it...? YES!!

We are now in the process of getting new doors and windows for our home, which will complete our remodeling.

Well, that and having to spend the rest of our lives paying for it all !

Until next time....