A new home owned by Nick and April Patterson was awarded first place for home design in the 3,001-3,900 square feet category of the 2019 Jerry Rouleau Awards for Excellence in Home Design presented by the National Association of Home Builders Building Systems Councils.
April Patterson made the following statement about how the concept behind the couple’s award-winning home .
When Southern plantation meets industrial elegance, you will get a home unlike any other. The Southern Grace is on our farm, Acres of Grace Farms, which was passed down to us through my parents, Doug & Janie Smith, founders of Honest Abe Log Homes.
This land holds our family’s heritage and is our legacy. It is the farm my dad grew up on and where he and his family of 10 farmed to survive. It’s the beginning of our story and also the start of a new generation of log home living. In 1978 Dad began making mop and broom handles. That escalated into multiple wood-related businesses.
As second-generation owners we felt it was time to expand on the way log homes have traditionally been built and move forward – first by developing a new log profile, the 10” Round, along with new design concepts. This home is the first of its kind offered through Honest Abe. While it is distinctively different in comparison to more traditional styles, it encompasses our passion for log home living. “Southern Grace” is the perfect name for this new look and feel.
The home is filled with touches of all things Southern – chickens, cows, farm décor, and reflects our living on a farm and farming over 1,000 acres of row crop, cattle, home grown garden vegetables we sell to the public, along with our Southern Marketplace event held on our farm twice a year. We love timber frame and wanted to implement it into our bedroom to have an even different look and feel from the main part of the home.
We also wanted offices to be able to work from home along with a back porch with a fireplace to enjoy the view of the pasture, ponds, and woods that really ties nature and our home all in perfectly well. The catwalk ties back memories walking with dad through the mill. To achieve a high contrast color throughout the house we stained trim in Black Walnut, and the logs themselves in the kitchen were stained Gentry Grey. Counters are leathered finished granite. We went with an engineered hardwood in hickory and finished it with winter wheat throughout the house.
Some of the features to look for in the pictures as you browse the gallery are pressed tin barrel ceiling in chrome finish; distressed finish on teal cabinets; hand carved ceiling/ light medallion in hexagonal dining room with hand carved ceiling beams in each corner; cable and metal square stock instead of typical wood balustrade on staircase and catwalk; attached garage slightly angled toward facade for 3D effect; use of chicken wire in cabinet doors; eat-in diner booth in kitchen within the cabinets; 72″ windmill fan at top of staircase; belt and pulley-driven fan between the heavy timber beams in master bedroom; the use of old barn roofing and old wood fence planks to finish out the basement ceiling and walls; American chestnut (now extinct) mantles in living room & on covered patio; metal stock and conduit railing for exterior rear deck; 35′ floor-to-ceiling stacked rock fireplace interior and exterior: popup USB charger station with outlets in kitchen island/booth; USB outlets throughout home; kitchen cabinet layout with extensive upgrades and extras; his and her home offices; master bedroom closet with built in cabinetry, dressing room and marble work service; wire baskets converted to light fixtures; hobby room; white wash and black walnut stain for heavy timber logs in the center of the home; mud room.
