The Log Home Diary | Behind-the-Scenes Look at Planning, Designing and Building a Wisconsin Log Home

Well, we’re about to find out. We are JoAnn and Shawn Hennigan, and this is our journey from design to finish. We’ll share the inside scoop on exactly what goes on during the log home building process through our eyes.

Follow our story by clicking on any of the content below, we hope you enjoy reading about our experience as much as we enjoyed planning, designing and building our dream home:

A few years ago, friends of ours bought a 19th-century log cabin. Sure, it needed a little—okay, a lot—of work, but it turned out really beautifully. I fell so in love with the place that I started scouring log home magazines.

Soon, my husband Shawn and I were looking for property of our own. We were completely bitten by the log home bug…(Click to continue)

Once we cleared the minimal amount of land we needed for our new log home, we were ready to start building.

The home was to sit on a massive sheet of bedrock, which meant that to build a full in-ground basement, we’d need to blast that rock out —not a task (or expense) we were ready to take on…(Click to continue)

This week we’re taking a break from the hustle and bustle of log home construction to reflect on our experiences so far (and share with you these 5 tips we’ve acquired along the way).

Everyone will have a different home-building story to tell, but here are a few gems of wisdom we’ve learned while building our log home…(Click to continue)

With the construction behind us, it was time to finish off our log house and turn it into a real home. I got together with the Wisconsin Log Homes in-house interior designer, to talk about the type of ambiance I wanted to create—a warm log home with a Western ranch feel.

Before we got started, I gathered pictures and photos that I’d clipped from magazines and collected swatches of flooring, fabric and paint…(Click to continue)