An impromptu bit of remodeling by an Oregon couple ended up revealing an altogether unexpected and very welcome bit of history.
Naomi, who lives with her fiancé Kevin and their toddler in a quaint little house out in Wallowa County, always knew the property was in need of some work, starting with the “badly worn awful siding” wrapped around the outside of the building. “It was installed in the 1980s sometime and has since started warping pretty badly in some places,” she told Newsweek.
Naomi wasn’t alone in feeling like her home was looking a little out of date. A 2026 Talker Research poll of 2,000 homeowners commissioned by the building materials company TAMKO found around 30 percent of respondents planning to renovate their home cited the fact their current property feels outdated as the top motivation for doing so. Naomi’s renovations were a little more unusual than most though, mainly for the fact they ended up being a spur-of-the-moment thing.
“We were outside with our toddler the other day and got back on the conversation about replacing the old siding when curiosity finally took over,” she said. “We were debating on pulling some boards to see what we’d be getting into. I said words to the effect of ‘well it looks bad already, how much worse would it look if we took some boards down and then screwed them back in after we know what’s under it?’ And out came the crowbar.”
Spontaneously ripping off the siding of your home isn’t something anyone with any experience of home renovation projects would recommend. It’s far better to have a plan in place, should whatever lies underneath end up being unpleasant or not up to standard.
Naomi’s is no ordinary story though. As they tore away at the unsightly siding, Naomi and her partner were confronted with something they had never expected: logs. In fact, the more they removed, the more it became apparent that the facade had been hiding the fact they were living in a log cabin.
Naomi said that process was one they undertook in “complete shock.”
“It took a good hour of back and forth, as well as peeling the corner piece off, to even accept what we thought we were seeing,” she said. “The previous owner gave no indication of having any knowledge that there was anything behind the siding besides what you might expect from a regular framed house when my fiance bought it.”
Since that fateful day, Naomi and her husband have done a little digging into the property’s past. The deed that comes with the house is dated 1911, indicating the property is well over 100 years old. She says the small North East Oregon town where they live had a huge timber industry up until the 1980s, with a log mill that dates back over a century, so it’s entirely plausible that the property was built back when this part of the country was only just starting to become inhabited by more people.
“The people who lived out here back then were settlers who probably built their own homes,” she said. “Once the train line came and Sears and Roebuck started to offer their home-kits and those flooded the county. Who knows how many simple log homes, made of logs milled just down the road, still exist here!”
Though she says the whole process has been exciting, it’s also been “a bit overwhelming” as they continue to learn more about the work they will need to put in to revert the house back to its original log-based status. It’s a process she says they are determined to see through though.
“We’d love to be stewards for bringing more history to the surface if we can,” she said. “We’re waiting on advice from log home specialists, and working with the local county museum on trying to uncover some more information that will hopefully help us gain a true heading.”
In the meantime, Noami has been sharing her story on social media, posting pictures of the discovery process to Reddit under the handle u/NoIndependence2844. Right now the focus is on renovating the house in the hope of returning it to something approaching its former glory.
“We will be getting the siding the rest of the way off and moving forward in a month or two when the weather clears,” Naomi said.
Read the full article here
