Fun Detour - Hometime Log Cabin
- Corey Stottlemyer
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
For this week’s Fun Detour, I was thinking about the origin story for Cade’s interest in staying in a cabin in the woods. At first, I thought of The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Akroyd, which is a fun movie. But as I thought about it more, I recall Cade, Liberty, and I watching the “Log Cabin” series on Hometime, which was a PBS home improvement series that began in 1986 and ran for almost 30 years.
Two of my favorite projects included “Log Cabin” from 1991 and “Lodge-Style Log Home” from 1999, both of which I purchased on DVD. In the series, the co-hosts play a couple acting as their own general contractor taking on both new construction and rehabilitation projects. The two log home projects were done in the Northwoods of Minnesota. The Log Cabin was a 2300 Sq Ft, 3-bedroom home. And the Lodge-Style was almost 2600 sq ft with 3 bedrooms. (I have included the links from Maple Island, the firm that designed and assembled the logs.) As it was the nineties, everyone seemed to be wearing a flannel shirt over a turtleneck.
While I prefer the Lodge home myself, my kids enjoyed the Log Cabin more. It could be that the Log Cabin only had one DVD, versus the Lodge, which had three. The kids especially enjoyed the scene in the Log Cabin when started snowing while they were installing the chinking between the logs. It seemed like every fall it would come out on a weekend, and we would have it on in the background or take nap to it. As the kids and I started to take more trips, the Log Cabin was in the rotation as we traveled.
In an age where HGTV and others have figured out how to compact a six-figure construction project into an hour show with commercials, I deeply appreciate the multi-episode projects seen on Hometime and This Old House.
Hometime Log Cabin
Hometime Lodge