Decisions, decisions

Decisions, decisions

Really there was no decision to make for if we were going to move, it was a matter of timing.  But Sitka through a big wrench into that clock.  A career, a family, those kids growing up and needing a home base, and Matt Hunter all had a hand in Sitka being our home for thirty years.

I won’t dwell on those these, but I have to say that it was a great place to raise children, my co-workers became my Alaska family, and former student Matt Hunter asked if I would consider running for the City Assembly.  The timing was just right though as Mik needed somewhere to stay while he finished his work on his Masters in the Art of Teaching last year.  Stefania having a nice job with Allen Marine also complicated things, but she has been very supportive of our chasing our dream to move to the shores of Lake Superior.

So really the timing was great to look at summer/fall of 2018, finishing my Assembly term, for our relocation.  What needed to be done was decide what our new home would look like, outside and in.  We had always wanted a log home and it just a matter of figuring out how to make that happen.  The internet was a great way to start.

We found that there are a lot of companies that create log homes across the country.  There was one that stood out as it was near our property and it used local trees from the Hiawatha National Forest of the Upper Peninsula: Hiawatha Log Homes.  An email got me a hard copy of their stock designs, I guess in late 2015.  There was also an ecopy that we could access whenever.  None of the stock designs quite made it.  But some were close.  We actually started with a stock design and then made some major changes to it in number of bedrooms and the creation of a great room.  This turned out to be a great decision.  It was a really long, collaborative process between us and was mostly fun, but occasionally frustrating, I am sure for both of us.  

What was particularly interesting is how the work together, discussions, agreements and disagreements really brought us closer together.  It injected new vitality into virtually every aspect of our lives.  Had the thought of living on an island with 14 miles of road perhaps affected us in ways we had not noticed?  Did we, in our late 50s ‘need’ a change, in this case a significant one?  As they say in Marquette, “You betcha, Honey!” 

That design we put together had to get translated to a price, taking into consideration the size of logs; we decided on the largest available, twelve-inch.  Again, a good decision for both appearance and for r-value, as log homes do not have insulation besides the logs.  Spendy… but only about 20% of the eventual total cost.  Yeesh.  But it is really kind of cool to get exactly what we want.