Refinishing the house

Last year was all about finishing the inside of the house the way we want it, and this year we have to tackle the outside.  The stain on the logs is very old and peeling in places, and the house has lots of UV damage and is dirty.  We asked a longtime neighbour when the last time was that he saw someone touch the house, he laughed and said never.  There are a few ways to tackle the problem. The best and most expensive in the $5,000-$10,000 is blasting (sand blasting ground up corn or glass beads), which brings the logs back to original condition and then a sand and re stain.  The painter's idea is pressure wash, sand and stain, but it is controversial as it isn't a good idea to add all that water to our non chinked house, we probably end up with water inside the house.  The last idea is sanding it.  Since we are both off work for a few weeks and we chose this.  We started with 7 inch angle grinder that our very strong and capable timber frame friend lent us.  I did 2 logs and was exhausted and sore.  Trev did a few more but it was too heavy and powerful to easily maneuver around.  We then bought a 5 inch grinder which was much better, and got to it.  Since the wood is cedar with an old finish, its all coming off very easy.  We are waiting for a special tool to come from the states to get into those corners, then another sand to go with finer grit, clean off all the sawdust and 2 coats stain and one topcoat to go.

We are hoping to get the south and the west side done this year, maybe the east side if we are lucky. Trev is on his way to get some scaffolding for the month so we'll see how far we get.