Work Ethic

In June of 2006, log walls emerged taller and taller with every week.
Hard work throughout the summer found Julianne and the 7 children clearing the woods next to the house, making brush piles and stacks of firewood out of the forest debris.
Even two year old Benjamin toddled back and forth with a stick to throw on the growing pile.



Our children's work ethic was strengthened as we plowed through the dense forest together,
creating beauty out of a tangled mess.
We set ourselves a small areas to tackle, working about four hours each day.
The motivation of accomplishing our task kept us cheerful,
and when we tired,
mama encouraged all on for the final surge with a promise of ice cream when we got home!
The children were so proud of their work.
It was easy to go to work the next day because we all wanted our forest to be a place to play and view the abundant deer and occasional moose that wander about.

More pics

Jim and Ben helpin' dad!!

Amost done with the first floor

Installing an interior column

Placing the ridge pole

How It All Began

I would like to tell you of the magnificent story of God’s providence to a rural community pastor and his family in North Idaho.
We have long dreamed of building a log home. 
We felt like we forfeited the dream 5 years ago when Brian became a pastor.
However, the church family desired a larger home for our growing family than the parsonage supplied, and so encouraged us to pursue the dream once again. 
That is when the blessings started falling like rain. 
First, a man in the church GAVE us 10 acres of heavily timbered land. 
Most of the trees were of marketable size, so Brian and his (then 13 year old) son, John, began selecting house logs and felling them. 
A forester from the church body helped Brian choose straight Lodgepole pine trees for the house. 
120 of them to be exact. 
These were decked next to the house site. 
The tops from these trees produced two truck loads of saw logs for a local sawmill. 
This process started in the spring of 2005. 
Brian traveled to Duval, WA to take a log home building class from the Log Home Builders Association of North America, giving him the needed knowledge to construct his home completely by hand.
During the summer, we hosted two large work parties, inviting just about everyone we knew to come and experience the pioneer method of peeling logs by hand with a draw knife or a spud. 
Over 45 people came to the first event, and nearly 30 to the second. Most of the logs were peeled this way, the entire family, right down to two year old Benjamin, helped.
By fall, Julianne’s dad had agreed to finance a home construction loan, so the foundation was poured.
Before winter, six courses of logs were laid on the new foundation and the dream began to look very real and exciting. 
The completed house will be three stories tall, and approximately 3500 square feet.
The providence of God showed so clearly, any doubt of whether this project was of the Lord was immediately dispelled. 
ALL the heavy equipment needed to forge a home in the middle of a forest was willingly loaned, usually with a tank full of fuel to boot. 
Bulldozers, an excavator, crane, boom truck, backhoe and grader were all available for Brian to use. Brian rather enjoyed operating the heavy machinery, you know, big boy’s toys.

Wow! Friday already. Thought I'd post a picture of the family to introduce ourselves. We live in the mountains of North Idaho.  Each day the Lord has a lesson to teach me if I will listen. This week has been a trial. He has taught me that regardless of how stressed I get about all that needs to be done, He is still in control and has a handle on it. I just need to be faithful with what He has given me... including the 24 hours each day I am blessed with.
Winter is coming and the rush is on to get the roof over the house so that we can continue to work after the snow flies. In addition the roof will protect the logs and the wood I-beams that form the rafters. I also need to coat the outside of the logs with a mixture of boiled linseed oil and polyurethane. Before I can sheet the roof I need to level each rafter along the ridge pole (36 feet in the air) and then level each rafter with the outside cap log and purlin in between the ridge and cap log. Before I can do this I have to rough-in the first floor because I do not have a ladder tall enough to reach the ridge pole from inside the house. I am now accessing the ridge pole from a ladder set in the back of my pickup out front of the house. I should get a good deal of the floor joists in today and maybe some plywood over them in places so I can get the ladder in their and start on the roof. May the Lord give me wisdom as I go about these tasks today!!

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to our blog. This is a new experience for us but we want to share with you how God has provided for us. There are many aspects to this journey and along the road we will include bits about our family as well!!
For starters! My name is Brian. My "completer", love of my life, my beautiful bride is Julianne. God has blessed us with seven children ranging in age from 15 to 6 months. This is a current picture of "Providence Lodge." We look forward to sharing it's incredible story with you.
Providence Lodge is a hand built, pioneer style, family effort to build a log home from trees off our own property. Each log (120 of them) was hand peeled by friends and family, even two year old Ben helped. Brian and son John, along with friends, have worked for two years to have the house this far. It has been an adventure in work ethic, determination, perseverance, and sweat.