Log Raising Week

Hello and welcome back to the 16th installment of my series, Beyond the Image, where I share the story behind the house featured in Super Finnish’s marketing. In this series, I take you through the inspiration, the five and a half months of construction, the design process and solutions, and where the house stands today.

In this post, I’ll share the excitement of log raising week—a milestone I had been waiting for with a mix of anticipation and nerves.

Beyond The Image: Part 16

After many long days of ground preparation, foundation work, and supervising the construction site, it was finally time to start building the actual structures. I had a fantastic team of four guys putting everything together, and they were great. Efficient, professional, and clearly used to this kind of work.

The weather before the first raising day promised something good. It did get cloudy and a little snowy later, but it was a great start to a week of serious building!

The Biggest Delivery of My Life

Just a couple of days earlier, I received the biggest delivery of my life (so far) when the log house package finally arrived. It came in what felt like a trillion separate bundles, all carefully wrapped and protected from the weather. Keeping the logs dry before construction is essential, especially in Finland’s climate. Since I managed the project myself, I was able to schedule the delivery to match the estimated start of the log house raising. Thankfully, everything lined up perfectly. Both the delivery and the crew showed up on time, and I only had a few days to worry about keeping the logs safe and dry under tarps.

The yard was filled with bundles, and my most important job was to make sure all the logs and their contents stayed dry.

Do I Even Have a Job?

The day the crew arrived felt like Christmas morning. They had experience raising hundreds of log houses, and I had full trust in them. I was at the site early, ready to assist with whatever they might need; screws, tools, and most importantly, coffee. Beyond that, I mostly stayed out of their way. Not that it was easy, I was dying to supervise every detail and watch the house come together in real time. But I also wanted to respect their space and let them do their work.

At one point, one of the builders even asked if I had a job since I was there so much. He found it hard to believe that this, building my own log home, was my job.

The raising started off better than I could have dreamed. The team had experience building hundreds of log houses, so I had full trust in them.

A Fast-Paced Start to My Log Home

They started by raising the main structure. It felt like only a heartbeat passed before the building reached its full height. The long glass walls were quick to install since they’re mostly just that—glass. The large windows were surprisingly easy to lift into place. The logs were stacked one by one, and the process moved incredibly fast.

The sauna building came next. It was smaller, but the tasks were the same. The team just barely managed to get their small crane close enough to lift the log packages and big windows into place to close up the structure.

Even though the sauna building is half the size of the main structure, it required the same tasks to raise.

By the end of the week, both the main building and the sauna cabin were fully raised and weatherproofed. Just in time too; only a couple of days later, it started snowing like crazy again. And I loved it.

Jussi-Pekka Kajaala

Nordic Visionary, Creative Entrepreneur