Top Log Home Magazine Features Blowing Rock Custom Builder

Deal Construction of Blowing Rock is featured in the Winter 2007 edition of Luxury Log Homes and Timber Frame, a premiere Wisconsin based publication that nationally is considered the best resource in the industry for log home builders and owners.
The full seven-page full color center spread of the magazine details the building of a High Country log home from the perspective of the home owner and the builder. The author of East Meets West was Ronda Mollica and features beautiful photography by Roger Wade. Stylings for the feature were done by Debra Grahl.
Now available on newsstands nationally, the article features the Deal built home of Maryanne and Mark Mays recently completed in nearby Valle Crucis.
“When designing a
log home retreat, not only should the home look inviting, but more importantly, it should feel inviting.”
That’s the mantra of Maryanne Mays, who carefully designed and decorated her family’s handcrafted vacation home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Valle Crucis, North Carolina. “We wanted to surround ourselves with colors, textures, and artifacts that we enjoyed,” she says.
To achieve a sense of serenity and calm, Maryanne turned to the ancient Chinese tradition of feng shui, which proclaims to control one’s subtle human energy (or chi) through the proper balance of one’s home and furnishings. The concept of feng shui is being used by designers as part of the “green” movement in homes; it’s used as an organizational tool to get homeowners to think about the flow of their home.
Mark and Maryanne Mays, along with daughter, Chelsea and son Connor, live year-round in a Tuscan-style home in Florida where Mark Mays is a dentist for special needs children. They felt passionately that their retreat should be a real getaway, so on weekend and summer vacations they can travel an easy hour and a half north by plane to exchange their Italian-styled home for pioneer logs and sandy beaches for wooded mountains.
Maryanne had a definite floor plan in mind along with her thoughts on what elements would make up the interior space to create a natural harmony. When she discovered Maple Island Log Homes of Twin Lake, Michigan, had a similar floor plan in their catalog, she didn’t hesitate to call them to begin laying the groundwork for her family’s hideaway.
The flow of the home is important in feng shui, so the family plotted the length of the home in a north-south direction with the entrance of the home on the north side. This allowed the large dining room French doors to face the morning sun. Contractor Wilson Deal of Deal Construction was in tune with Maryanne’s vision and consulted her on many of the fine points.
Indeed, Maryanne spent many hours on the plane flying back and forth to oversee the project. She felt it was important to feel the home as it emerged.
“When the logs arrived in North Carolina in January, this was the first time our builder saw what he was actually dealing with,” states Maryanne. “The log shell and blueprints were from Maple Island, but we used the blueprints as a guide. Interior walls and rooms were altered as they went along.
“Our builder was great about maximizing space with storage closets. We changed the layouts of the bathrooms and closets, deleted and changed windows, and put a laundry room upstairs,” she says.
She also discovered the detailed grain of the Michigan red pine logs to be so soothing that she decided to just put clear stain on the walls rather than cover them with a tinted finish. “I also didn’t want any synthetic substances in the home; no drywalls, fiberglass tubs, or anything plastic. All substances should be as natural as possible,” Maryanne says.
The décor of the home was in spired by the look of Old World Europe with its earthy colors and solid substances. Rich black kitchen cabinets stand out against the grain of the log walls; a neural-colored fieldstone fireplace grounds the room rather than overpowering it.
Even manipulating the direction of the white pine tongue-and-groove board on the walls and floors gives the room movement by placing it vertically and diagonally in different areas of the home. The front entrance has vertical boards to give the area lift. The upper loft area features herringbone placed boards that move easily with the roofline of the cathedral ceiling.
Maryanne integrated the five feng shui worldly elements into her décor: The wood element represented in the logs themselves, the tables, and even in the cotton blankets, which they use while sitting on the deck; the metal element in the stainless steel appliances, the granite countertops, the forged iron light fixtures and door handles, and the crystal rock and gemstone collection on the sofa table; the water element in reflective surfaces such as mirrors, windows, and charcoal gray colors; the fire element in the fireplace, candles, red-and-gold living room chairs, and antler chandelier in the master bathroom; and the earth elements in the slate used on the floor in the bathrooms and showers (the bathroom sinks are also hand-painted earthenware).
With all of these natural elements and textures surrounding the home, you can’t help but relax, Maryanne says.
“Our guests tell us that they have never slept better and everyone has a wonderful appetite,” she says. “It just creates an aura that comes from a quiet mind and relaxed body.”