Additional antique furnishings
with their original finishes
extend the farmhouse feel to
the upstairs.

Log Cabin Revival

Building a new house can be daunting enough, but rebuilding an old house, with no floor plan to work from, takes a bit of creative genius and a crystal-clear vision. Terry and Brenda Blackburn have both: The proof is in their farm home, a successful blend of an 1849 log house and new construction. The project began in Kentucky, where the couple found an abandoned log house and had it disassembled, numbered, and transported to their five-acre property in Indiana. Then they began reassembling the pieces. "Every day was a challenge," Brenda says. "We had taken photographs, but then we lost them." After some initial log-raising weekends, when friends and family helped to set the first logs, the Blackburns and Terry's father, Claud, worked daily for two years rebuilding the two-room house from scratch. Along the way, they heaved 24-foot logs into position, acquired a crash course in old-fashioned chinking techniques, and outfitted the house for the 21st century with a bathroom, a kitchen, a second-floor loft, front and back porches, and a utility room.