Turning a Log Cabin Into a Year Round Family Home

Hello and welcome to Holland, Michigan. We are here at this log cabin that went from a vacation rental that my husband and I first bought and transitioned into our primary residence. We have chickens in a garden and we put in a pool. I can't wait to show you guys around. So the cool thing about this home is when we first bought it, the layout is essentially the same. I mean things were tweaked, every finish was changed. Yeah, it was very appealing to you. I remember one of the first things you said about it. Yeah. Is it actually has a great floor plan. Yep. And this living room was something that we loved, especially the wood stove. My husband loves the wood stove and it feels so correct to be in a log cabin. This is your year round home. Yes. In the woods and you've made it that way by doing some things that maybe some people would think were unconventional or like maybe even sacrilege. Yeah. Like painting the logs. Yeah. But honestly it's made it livable. It's light and it's bright. Yeah. I love what you've done. Well and painting the walls, I was worried that it wouldn't feel, that you wouldn't be able to see the character, but you can still see all of the character in the wood and you still get that feeling of warmth. You have just made this place look so amazing because of the eclectic mix of furniture that you put in here. Like here, you know, your antique English piece. Yeah. It's just beautiful. Next to your kind of like fancy velvet and bullion fringe swivel chairs, and then a concrete cylinder table. This Jane sofa kind of works with anything. And then the Eames chair, mid-century modern, like personified. If all of these finishes were laid out on a table, it would be harmonious and I think that is true. An important part of being eclectic. Another thing that we loved about the layout is that it's open to the kitchen. By shifting the dining room into this area, we were able to put in a large island, flanking fridge and freezer, a take on the range alcove, but with a view outside. Why does this work, Grace? Why does having a range hood in front of a window in your circumstance work? Knowing that there's really only one wall, you could either put the sink in there and have a stovetop on the island, but you'd need space for a stacked oven. Well, not only that, you'd have to figure out how to vent a stove over the island. Right. In this situation with the logs. Yeah. I mean, Ted framed it forward and so that gave us enough of a sill depth with a window to be set back enough to where grease and stuff is not as much of an issue as you would think. And glass is a really wipeable surface. It's easy to maintain. Yeah, it really is. So yeah, if you think about stuff splattering on tile or stone, you're still going to have to wipe that off. Now with this, we can really see when it's dirty and take some Windex to it. You live here. Yeah. It's clear. This is not a show house. This is your family's living house. And it's so fun to see, like, because of the way it's laid out and because of the choices that you've made, it works so well for your family. Yeah. So when it was a vacation rental, we did not need storage for food. And so when we moved in, I was like, oh, oh, I need a pantry. Yeah, I need food. And so we found this antique piece on Facebook Marketplace. And this is it's not pretty inside, but I can show you on the show inside. I think so. It fits a microwave and baskets for food. We've got like the oils and spices up here and then chips and crackers down here. You have a bread drawer and this has Ziploc bags and plastic bags. But I think it's brilliant, which leads us to kind of a very important part of your space. This is the coffee bar and it is six feet long. Each of the cabinets are 24 inches in the middle is a beverage fridge, which also helps relieve the needs of the main fridge. We have our beverages over here. And it is also really great for entertaining saying, hey, if you need a drink, check in the beverage fridge and the coffee bar. And it's great for coffee, too, because your milk for lattes and stuff is right here. And then there's my little baking station over here with the way that the mechanicals are. There's a lot of plumbing that runs right through here and HVAC. And so this needed to stay for mechanicals, which afforded us this little tucked in nook area, which fits a KitchenAid mixer, big thing of flour, sugar, oatmeal, and then our extra coffee and some other things. I also want to talk about the countertops in here, because we went with all Nero mist honed granite and it is a dark surface that looks a lot like soapstone. And this is one of the most affordable countertops out there. And it's very, very durable. You can put hot stuff on it. You can put grease on it. It doesn't really scratch, but it does chip. Yeah. Well, all stone chips. Yeah. Yeah. But that, I would say, is the one drawback. And the couple of places where we have a chip, I kind of ignore. I think it's a little bit charming. There you go. Yeah. The Tina. As you head to the back of the house, there's some utility areas and then the primary suite. So come on. This was another area that when family versus vacation rental, this mudroom area is now very used. Yes. Like it's a workhorse. This gets a lot of use, too. So the kids are always in here washing their hands, getting ready for stuff, maybe washing out a paintbrush. I mean, they do and bring in animals and they clean, you know, it's just everything else is the utility slash powder on the sink. Yeah. Now, here's where you kept some of the original log colors. If you want the honest truth. Yeah. We stored everything in here while we did the renovation. And so it couldn't be. It could not be accessed to paint. I would love to also paint this down the road. One thing you did not skimp on, though, is the bathroom. There is a really funny story that'll maybe give a little window into TV world for us. I remember getting some kind of S.O.S. call from you. Yeah. Well, we are shooting the reveal here for the vacation rental. And I said, Mom, we don't have a vanity in the bathroom. Ted tried to spend the whole time making it, but everything's done. But we do not have a vanity. And so you grabbed the one from the store. Yeah. That was on display. Yep. With a countertop. Load it in your car. It looked great. No, but I love I love the dark tile in there. I still just love that that depth. And the floor is so fun. It looks like a textile piece. I just love every single choice in here, Grace. And it was a really smart way of doing things on a limited budget. And I just think there's so many beautiful things that exhibit that here. So very smart. Thanks, Mom. Well, should we show them the outside? Oh, yes, for sure. I think you should lead the way. So out here is really an extension of the home. We live out here. Ted built this deck that extends. So you have a covered portion and a non-covered portion. I also love the dimensions that you chose because you made the long table possible. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of a design hack, what you did. So it's really two tables put together to make a really long one. And we fill this table regularly. And it's so fun. And Ted grills a bunch, which this kitchen, this outdoor kitchen is not really a kitchen yet. It's just pizza oven, smoker, charcoal. Hopefully the next time y'all see it, there will be an outdoor kitchen kind of built off of the deck. And we want to incorporate stone and maybe more granite. We'll see how it goes. What's nice about this deck is for code, it needs to be like a 30 inches before you need a railing. And this is like 28. So instead of a railing, we could do these beautiful planter boxes. These are from Vigo and it's their modern tall beds. And so we just spaced those out first and then filled in with the stairs. And so they're not custom or anything. It's just a great way to get, get this beautiful look and add some greenery when there's only hardscape. There's creeping Jenny, there's some catmint. These are echinacea, boxwoods. There's some grasses. It feels a little bit wild, but it's so colorful and beautiful. We put the pool in, I know you're talking about smart economical decisions when we're inside. The pool is a decision that Todd and I made for our kids. If we're going to move out, there's got to be a draw for bringing friends and bringing family. I would say that decision of like, we need to have something that's a draw. That's a family centric community kind of feeling decision. And it was wise because it's, it's done exactly what you had hoped. From a nightjar sample, we have a sauna that gets a great workout in the winter, especially the wood burning sauna, hence all of the wood that Ted has cut. The big window looks right out onto the garden. The garden is super fun. We love to grow some food, but it also turns out to be quite a bit of deer food. Yeah, but we, we just had an egg dish with your eggs, your cherry tomatoes, your basil. So they're not getting everything. The first time we ever came out here, when you put your fire pit in, this was my seat way over here. So I got to see the garden, the pool, the house. And I was like, wow. Thank you so much for coming along on this home tour and seeing how my family and I live out at this log cabin in the woods. We're so thankful to be here. Thank you for coming along. And just to make sure you don't miss anything, more home tours, and even walking through projects from start to finish, make sure you like and subscribe to our channel. I think it is so pretty, Grace. I find it very hard to work.