Once you've found a floorplan that most closely meets your wants & needs, it's time to determine whether it is close enough to your "dream home" to stick with, as is...

Or, whether you still want to make a fair amount of changes to that set of plans in order to make it your own.

Here's what we did.

John Anthony put together a nice little summary of what's hot and what's not in terms of home design and remodeling these days.

John's report was based on research he conducted for the National Association of Realtors.

I saw this at Bits & Pieces and just had to share...

If you've got a good sense of humor, this will make you smile.

I found an old, yellowed article I tore out of the newspaper several years ago.

It's as interesting today as it was then (circa 2001 - when we lived in Pensacola - which is the newspaper it came from - as determined by a car dealer ad on the back).

The article gives you an idea of the sheer volume of building materials that are used when building a "traditional" single-family home.

When we first started designing our log home with Honest Abe Log Homes (about a year ago), Jim and I both gravitated toward the D-Log for some reason.

So naturally, we've been thinking all along that our log home would be built with D-Logs, right?

Well, fast-forward one year, and now we're considering a switch to Genesis Logs!

See why below... plus a listing of some of the differences between Genesis Logs and D-Logs.

So far, the only "rustic" or non-traditional type of furniture (a.k.a log furniture) that we are seriously contemplating at this time is furniture made of Teak wood.

We first fell in love with Teak when we visited the Keepsake Imports booth at a Log Home Show.

We most admired its thick and solid structure, as well as the darker color. That, and the Teak furniture pieces we have seen in person appear to be much more substantial (more solid wood, thicker frame, heavier in weight).

But I figured I better know what I was getting into if we decided to purchase some Teak wood furniture, so I did a little research.

Here's what I've learned...

Well, after my write-up on the DIY TrafficMaster Allure flooring from Home Depot was such a hit, I figured I'd dig a little deeper and see if I could find some other "similar yet different" types of flooring.

Here's one: FLOR carpet tiles!