Having a tree land on the house during Isabel back in September, 2003 forced us into some reconstruction work.  We'd been planning on re-doing the deck and getting rid of the mud-room anyway.  So, the silver lining to the Isabel cloud is that we got to do that work using insurance money! 

The picture to the right is what the house looked like about a year after we started the reconstruction (Thanksgiving, 2004).  As you can see, we decided to expose the logs of the original log cabin, re-do the chinking between the logs, and replace the deck and mud-room with a wrap-around covered porch.  We also had the cinder-block chimney replaced with one that matches more with the original stone chimney.  To see how we got to this point, check out the pictures below.

Here are a couple shots of what it looked like three weeks after the storm.  The tree is gone.  The deck is gone.  The repairs to the addition (in the background) had not been started yet.  Since the siding on this wall had been damaged, and the insurance was going to pay to have it all replaced, we went ahead and stripped it all off.  Once we saw the beautiful condition of the log walls, we decided to expose them and re-do the chinking between them instead of covering them back up with siding.
This shot shows what was left of the mud-room at this point (only the platform), and the plywood covering much of the logs on this wall.  Once we started to remove this plywood, we found that it was put there because of damage to the logs from a fire that happened 30 years ago.  The damage to the logs is extensive enough that the part to the right of the chimney (where the two windows are) can't be exposed and will have to be re-sided.
By early November, 2003, the repairs to the addition were completed.  The roof was fixed, the window replaced, and the drywall and carpeting replaced.  What had been Clay's room was turned into a guest room (he decided to stay in his old room - something about hurricane nightmares - imagine that!).  We put the beautiful antique bed which had been gathering dust in the barn in there, along with a chest I inherited from my grandmother which seemed to match the bed perfectly.
Chrissy painted a beautiful mural on the wall of the new guest room to honor the barn owl who we knew had made a nest and raised young in the old Maple tree, along with all the creatures who had made that beautiful old tree their home during the many years it stood in our yard.
While the repairs to the addition were going on, the logs of the old cabin had been sand-blasted, treated for bugs, and the joints between the logs had wire mesh installed in preparation for chinking.  By November 20, 2003, when this picture was taken, the work on the porch had started and Chrissy had done the chinking of most of the joints on the lower half of the house.  She and I had also replaced the two lower windows with new vinyl thermal-paned replacement windows, and begun the trim around those windows and the doors.
By December 12, 2003, most of the porch was completed, except for the sheeting to be applied to the underside of the roof (which can be seen stacked under the window).  The porch roof gave Chrissy something to stand on so she could start working on the chinking for the upper half of the house.
By Christmas, 2003 the porch was completed, and most of the chinking was done.  Shortly after this, the wall where the plywood covers the damaged logs (to the right of the chimney) was re-sided.
This picture was taken in March, 2003.  The chinking was done and we'd started on landscaping around the porch.