On the day Terry Coyne bought her house, the Realtor couldn't find the key. Then, when she tried to crawl in a window, the 200-year-old sash fell apart in her hands. A more experienced restorer might have been discouraged. She wasn't.

"I like fixing up old things," she said.

Ms. Coyne learned how by fixing up this 1797 log house in Laughlintown, Westmoreland County. Twenty-five years later, it's still her home, and it's on the Ligonier house tour.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, you can tour Ms. Coyne's home and six other buildings on "Inside Ligonier Valley -- a Home Tour," a fund-raiser for the Ligonier Valley Historical Society, Ligonier Valley Chamber of Commerce and Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor.

This log house with an early-20th-century addition is among the town's oldest, smallest and simplest structures. But for someone with only a little restoration experience, it was far from simple:

"When I went to wash the windows, the glass fell out. I didn't have money for replacement windows, so I reglazed them."

With a book called "The Old House Compendium" as her bible, Ms. Coyne would read at night, then head over to Ligonier Hardware each day.

"They would giggle at my terrible outfits and say 'What are we doing today?' " she recalled.

Of course, she didn't do it alone. To strip off the wood siding that hid the original logs, she invited nearly 40 friends and family members for a "rip-off party." For the really tricky parts, she hired Brad Mooney, now chief restorationist at Fort Ligonier, who replaced chinking between the logs and installed a cedar-shingle roof.

Much of the inside work was plaster repair. A plasterer and former owner had installed wooden lath and several layers over the squared logs. Previous owners of the house also included three blacksmiths, the first being Robert Laughlin, who received the land for his Army service. Likely the house's builder, Mr. Laughlin would have kept busy shoeing the many horses that passed through Laughlintown, an early 1800s stagecoach stop that once held 13 inns and taverns.

All those plaster walls inspired Ms. Coyne's sister, Mickey Dillman of Regent Square, to offer to paint stencils. She decorated the front room and three bedrooms with early American motifs such as mountain laurel, baskets, birds and berries, experiencing neck problems for her labor of love. Another sister, Peggy Smith of Florida, quilted pieces that hang on the walls alongside sand paintings, Navajo rugs and other American Indian crafts. Ms. Coyne also has baskets from an Arizona reservation where she worked as a nutritionist in the late 1970s.

Ms. Coyne, who grew up in a nondescript North Hills house built in the 1940s, got her first taste of restoration when she bought and lived in a mid-1800s house in Australia. But it didn't really prepare her to work on what she initially thought was a "shabby but nice old Victorian farmhouse." Seeing logs beneath the wood siding, she plunged into a project that has been both an education and an inspiration.

"It was absolutely horrific when I first saw it. ... This was totally a learning process," she said.

Tickets are $25 each for "Inside Ligonier Valley -- a Home Tour" and are available beginning at 10 a.m. today at the Mill Creek barn on the west end of Ligonier. Information: 724-238-9030.