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Wiens packages log houses

By Rolf Boone | The Olympian • Published October 23, 2007

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ROCHESTER – Just off Interstate 5 in south Thurston County is a family-run business that has been preparing wood for log houses for about 15 years.

In all, Wiens Log Homes Inc., has been making log houses for more than 20 years, and it has spent the bulk of its time on the 6-acre site next to the freeway.

While word-of-mouth referrals have generated business for Wiens Log Homes, so has the exposure to Interstate 5, co-owner Diana Wiens said.

Besides herself, she is joined at work by her husband, Perry, son, Jeremiah, and daughter, Tosha Rodriguez.

Wiens Log Homes strictly makes the log packages that are later converted into houses, said Rodriguez, who drafts floor plans of the log houses.

"If it's a log, we do it; if not, we don't do it," Rodriguez said.

After getting a shipment of debarked Douglas fir, the company prepares and cuts the logs, and then builds the house on site to make sure all of the logs fit.

The house is then disassembled and shipped to the customer, Diana Wiens said.

The company does most of its business in Washington and Oregon, but it has shipped houses as far as Asia and Europe, she said.

Cliff Melby of Auburn bought a 4,000-square-foot Wiens log house that he had shipped to the top of Blewett Ridge, a part of the mountainous pass that separates Cle Elum from Wenatchee in north-central Washington.

The house is used mainly as a winter recreation destination for the Melby family and friends, he said.

"Personally, I like the warmth and feel of (log homes) on a cold winter night when you've got a ripping fire in the fireplace," he said. "There's a certain ambience that gets cast in those rooms that is unbeatable."

Melby added: "It's just a different feeling in a log home than in a stick-frame house."

Wiens has built as many as 15 houses in a year, but typically makes eight to 10 a year, Diana Wiens said. From start to finish, it takes about six to eight weeks to complete a log house, she said.

If the house is shipped to a customer in Washington and Oregon, the Wiens family travels to help set up the log package. If it's out of the area, assembly arrangements are made locally, she said.

Wiens also works closely with Elite Builders Northwest, a Tumwater builder that puts many of the finishing touches on the log houses, co-owner Adam Laneer said.

Laneer said he started working with Wiens about a year ago and has so far been involved in six log house projects. Once the log package is shipped to the site, Elite builds the foundation, fits all of the windows and adds cabinets and floor coverings, he said.

"It's a really fun process," Laneer said. "You get such a beautiful product in the end."