Therefore, take care in who you select to be your finishing carpenters. And don't leave this decision solely up to your general contractor. Dr. Ellen says to make your selection based upon: (1) carpenters whose skills and working habits you have already been able to observe; (2) work ethic and pride in their work; (3) affability; (4) level of interest in your project; (5) willingness to brainstorm with you; (6) attitude; and (7) physical and emotional health.

In other words, a lot more than just carpenter skills are important here. We've had experience, for example, with loners who don't work well with others. Not a good idea. You also want to avoid big egos and sloppy joes and (probably) fat arses because their health is definitely not going to be that great. If you are like us, you also don't want folks who will be smoking on the premises and who honor your wishes in that regard.

In other words, you want to find skillful, friendly people who care about you and your house, and who are fun to be around because (trust us) they are going to be around for a good while.

A good way to start finding the right people is to hire a general contractor who has all of the same attributes described above. We interviewed six different contractors before we found Bob Manseill and Woodland Homes – and do we have some horror stories! But Woodland Homes has been a great match for us and we hope you have the same good working relationship when you start your own building project.

Remember things flow from the top down: a quality contractor will hire quality people to work for them, and they will expect quality all along the way. The work force they assemble will mirror who they are themselves. This is not rocket science.

By the way, we also appreciate our finishing team greatly – they are a father and son duo who met our every requirement upfront and who still meet them today. A third carpenter has now joined them and he (Art) is also a joy to work with.

Part II

Puzzles present themselves around every corner because of the way beams and roofing lines and log walls coincide in a log structure.

With drywall you can hide things fairly easily. Not so with logs. And, depending upon the crew that dried-in the log structure for you, the finishing process can pose significant and time-consuming 'fix it' problems that you didn't count on. It is one thing to put the finishing touches on a log structure that was beautifully built with minimal construction errors. It is quite another to clean up after someone else's down-right sloppy work.

When you finally get to the point of finishing the interior of your log home, that's when the construction errors come into stark focus. If you are like us, you will want to fix them but do so with an open check book handy.

These photos illustrate some of the common finishing strategies use in log home construction. As we move forward in this process you will see more.

The first few photos give you a sense of the working environment for the finishing carpenter:

This procedure is repeated throughout the house wherever beams extend into the eaves. The finishing work is eventually double-coated with polyeurathane by the painters, allowing this trim work to blend beautifully into its surroundings.