Is this to be your full time home? That does not make a difference I guess.
But with any house, you did not buy a home, you bought a job.
Make no mistake, I would never rent, but all homes require maintenance.
My Wife and I live in a very, very harsh climate at 11,200’ in a mountain contemporary style passive solar house. Typical 2x4 balloon construction.
I agree with other posters that a true ‘log’ home will make it very difficult to make changes inside. In a typical home with sheet rock, it’s not (that) much of a big deal to change a bathroom, add outlets, move a door. I doubt this is as true in a real log home.
Another poster mentioned that a true log home is dark inside. I never thought of that. I’m sure that flat interior walls (drywall) reflect light better than the corduroy of a wall of logs. Something to consider. For myself, I love lots of light inside.
Another poster suggested the A-frame. Very simple to build and sometimes unique. Until you try to hang a picture on the wall/roof. The interior space can be difficult too. Because of the angle of the wall/roof, There is wasted space behind all furniture limiting your interior floor space. Being creative can solve this of course. As a tall guy, I don’t like A-frames. Bang my head a lot :D, and feels confining.
My interior walls are tongue and groove planks. Rearranging walls couldn’t be easier. Running wire is still difficult though. Most of the outlets are on wires run vertically from the basement. Some have to be hidden in raceways on the walls.
Light wood is fairly reflective. The interior log walls I have were stained with something obscenely dark by the previous owners. I use pine planks in some places to lighten up the space.
With sometimes being slightly less often than you’d have to dust open shelves. My parents lived in a log house for more than ten years. They did their homework, so they knew about having it re-sealed, but no one mentioned the dusting thing. It probably matters what kind of finish the logs have. Smoother logs probably catch less dust.
Their main room had a cathedral ceiling, so Mom hired the high dusting done every quarter. The same folks dusted the deer and antelope heads that were hung up high. Those came with the house or they wouldn’t have been there. (They were told that the moose head would NOT be staying. Apparently those were rare in the area.)
I do not think chinking is much of an issue with log cabins these days. I looked at a log cabin in CO which used the acrylic and there wasn’t a single crack in it. It was put on 14 years ago. It was soft to the touch, I think it had fiberglass backing. I questioned the owner several times, and he insisted it was all original the day he put in on in 2000. I also liked the wrap around porch that did a good job of keeping the snow away from the logs at the bottom. We’ve all seen logs at the bottom that get snow soaked, and leave a very dark moldy looking stain.
Here are pictures of that particular log cabin which I thought was well thought out and planned. One of the most well maintained log cabins I’ve seen. It was like new throughout.
Like most Texans, we look for a way to escape the brutal TX heat in the summer, and CO is the nearest place to cool off high up in their mountains. I’m not a realtor or trying to sell this for somebody in case you are wondering.
Thanks for the input, everyone. We’ve decided to go with SIP logs. This will be a summer home for us, not our primary residence. The house faces the north and the area is heavily wooded, so hopefully the upstairs loft won’t get too hot. If it does, we’ll install room air conditioners on top of the central air.