Updates

Our neighbour has completed his repairs of the bridge and has cut down a number of trees, and the "For Sale" sign is up.  It's unfortunate that this is the view from the best (only?) building site.  Luckily our little cabin will be a bit further away and hopefully hidden from their sight.

A photo of my new well cover:

I love this big old tree but I wasn't sure if it was still alive.  I was happy to see buds appearing!

We've cleaned out the pressure tank a bunch of times and flushed most of the rust out.  The water is looking much better now.

Envisioning the view once the renos are complete.

The water level of the lake keeps falling, even with all the spring rain.  It was almost to the top of the orange line only three weeks ago.  We seem to lose about 2-3 inches a week.

We enjoyed a little trip around the bay in Mom and Dad's canoe.  It was nice to get a look at the land from the water, and explore the lake a bit. 

After our canoe ride we started to pack up and get ready to head back to the city.

 

The trailer looks so lonely:

Sun setting behind the trees:

Not all work

Mom and dad have parked their trailer here for the time being, and it's such a treat to have access to all the comforts of home!  Pure luxury!

We had a lovely morning snack by the fire while we waited for the others to wake.

then we were treated to a full hot breakfast courtesy of our hard-working guests!

Here are the two new trees - one apple and one crabapple.  Beautiful colours!

Apple blossoms:

 Enjoying the sunshine.  We haven't seen much of it lately!

May Long

We were so lucky to have a bunch of friends and family come to the cottage to help us fill a second dumpster this weekend.  Many hands make light work!

Here are our supplies for the weekend... we must keep our helpers well fed and watered!

We demolished the interiors of the rest of the rooms that will be removed, and this marks the end of the insulation.  We are so happy not to have to deal with the itchy fibreglass anymore!

All the walls are stripped of drywall, wood paneling and electrical...

 ...then we moved onto the last of the ceiling to be removed.

Dad removing some electrical.

We even got help planting a couple new trees.  This one is a 6 in 1 apple tree with all my favourite varieties!

End of day one and the dumpster is almost full already.  Good work team!

A little bon fire to celebrate the end of a good day.

Rainy Day

It was a rainy day at the cottage... but the lake was peaceful.

With rain outside, I decided to tackle to bathtub, that was stained with layers of iron and soap scum.  Amazingly, it came clean!  Some new caulking, and it will be good to go.  Nothing fancy, but exciting to us to be able to shower after a long day working, covered with fibreglass and drywall dust.

Chris found some more treasure as he dismantled room #5.

Hubby looks like an old man, napping on his porch.  Should I buy him a banjo or a knife for whittlin'?  :)

The old well cover was disintegrating, dropping wood and debris into the dug well everytime we moved it.  I decided to take a dismantled door frame to create a new well cover to keep it a bit cleaner until we have a proper one constructed.

First Dip

My hubby is a little crazy, and a very eager to get into the lake.  He went swimming on May 6th!  That's gotta be a record.

Apparently we're in tick country!  I had never seen one before, but I'm getting very familiar with them now.  They are persistent little buggers, and we find them everywhere.  Luckily they are wood ticks, and do not carry lyme disease... so they are more of a nuisance than a real danger.  They are also seasonal and die off once it gets warmer.

Another photo of the pretty daffodils.  So far the only flowers to appear.

Our neighbour continues preparations to put his land on the market.  He is filling in the path on both sides of the bridge so 4 wheelers can pass over safely.  We considered buying the property to ensure our future privacy, but even his rock-bottom neighbourly rate is out of our price range.  We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that our future neighbours are respectful of our privacy, but we'll likely plant a row of trees along the creek just in case.

Four Rooms

This is the third room, in the process of being demolished. We plan to fill this room with debris - it will be our storage area until we get another dumpster to take it away.

This pretty much sums up my day:

 After the drywall is down, we go around and clean up the walls of all nails and screws, in the hopes we might be able to reuse this wood in the future.

 An example of the lovely  layers of wallpaper:

This is back in the first section we demolished - we're removing the closet walls.  This is where the floor has sunk, so I'm actually swinging on this part of the wall:

By the end of the day we had the ceiling removed in room #3, and our pile is growing nicely.

And here is room number four, all walls and closet removed.

Only two more rooms to demo from the inside, then we'll move on to the exterior.  But first we have a few structural details to work out.

Thank Goodness for Plumbers

This is our first experience with a well, pump, and pressure tank.  We brought in a plumber to prime the pump, and explain how it all works.  He also did some much needed repairs.  The pipes had frozen over the winter, and there were many leaks that needed to be fixed.

I had considered attempting the repairs myself, but I hate going into the crawl space.  It's muddy, it smells bad, and there are spiders.   It's also a tad scary to be reminded of the sketchy structure under the house; aside from the cracked beams, 2x4 joists spaces two feet apart, and rot everywhere, I also realized we're relying on what amount to little inukshuks to hold up the floor.

When I saw what the plumber had to do to reach the kitchen pipes, I knew I had made the right decision.  Worth every penny!

Even the hatch to enter the crawl space is creepy!

Five hours later, all the leaks are fixed, and here is our lovely tap water!  I guess a winter of sitting unused has left a fair amount of rust in the pressure tank.  We'll flush it out next time, and it will be good to go.

Rubber Boots

We bought some rubber boots so we could get a little deeper into the lake.  The quality of the lake is very important to us, since that's the main focus of this land.  We like to swim and boat, so we've been very excited to explore the shore... and can't wait to get a canoe down here so we can explore beyond our cove.

 Beautful lake bottom.

The buds are coming out.

The neighbour has been cutting trees and repairing the bridge.  The land beside ours will be for sale soon, and we're quite concerned about having neighbours so close.  The only feasible building site will be on a hill overlooking our property - far from ideal for us.