Dock ramp envy
When we bought the cottage in the summer of 2016, Steve’s intent was to build our docks himself but he soon realized that with a full remodelling job inside the cottage, he just wouldn’t have the TIME to do it. So we looked at our…
Recent Posts
How to choose a colour palette for your cottage in nine steps
Step One: Inspiration So while out on a bike ride near my cottage, I came across this barn with the most amazing colours in its roof. Quite the random patchwork but they seem to work together so well. I love how the blues evoke the…
Did you know that shiplap isn’t actually shiplap?
So I admit that I am addicted to HGTV. And what seems to be most popular? Shiplap. For those of you who don’t have the same addiction, here’s what it looks like: Shiplap is the horizontal wood covering on the walls in place of drywall.…
The last days of autumn at the cottage
I absolutely love this time of year. Words are not possible to describe that perfect autumn scent of falling leaves mixed with wisps of smoke. If only I could bottle that. Early October at the lake is always awesome. Cool nights make for early morning…
Renovating a cottage bathroom in only four days
At the cottage we relax our city standards. One bathroom? No problem for 10 people to share. Plus there is always the second bathroom, aka the outhouse, if things get desperate. Rules are put in place such as: 1) Please ask if anyone needs the…
Renovating the cottage, version 2.0
We bought our second cottage last summer after selling one that we’d owned for 12 years. And which we renovated over 12 long years. So for this new cottage, we were hoping to speed up renovations significantly which would mean that we could enjoy our…
The dreaded R word – Renovating the cottage
The other day I was putting together a spreadsheet of all the capital expenses we had incurred at our first cottage. You see, we sold that cottage last summer so I had to pull this info together to calculate the capital gain, or in our case…
Counting loons – no, not a new way to fall asleep
We moved to a new lake last summer and promptly joined the lake association to learn all we could about our new area. They put out a call for loon counters. I’m familiar with bean counters but not loon counters. The association has partnered with…
Buying and renovating our second cottage – Moving on up, literally to the east side
If you’ve read some of my other posts, you’ll know that we originally had a lovely rustic cottage with water access. As our kids grew and their needs changed, we wanted to be on waterfront so we could be out on the water wake boarding in…
Being mindful at the cottage
As a cottager, you’ve probably been practicing mindfulness without even realizing it. If you enjoy sitting at the end of the dock just listening to the waves lapping the shore, watching the loons teach their babies how to dive and listening to the rustling of…
How to handle hoards of guests at the cottage
The unintended consequence (in a good way) of cottage ownership are guests. I come from a large family and luckily we all really enjoy each others’ company. But being a large family, we have drifted apart geographically. I had never imagined that when we bought…
Is there any such thing as a deer resistant plant? Adding privacy at the cottage.
So we bought this new cottage (new to us) and it has a fantastic location. One hundred and eighty degree view of the lake out the front windows, facing west, no weeds, crystal clear water and no cottages facing us. The one and only downside…
Summer activities at the cottage
The best thing about having a cottage, is that you get to have big people sleepovers all the time. Friends that you might only meet up with in a restaurant are now sleeping over and you get to see them in their jammies with bed head.…
Cottage Inventory
First world problems – did I leave the iphone charger at the cottage or did I bring it home? When you have a second home, it’s hard to keep track of what is located where. The easiest solution is to buy two of everything but…
Lessons learned as an Airbnb Superhost
When we decided to rent out our first cottage, it was with the goal of earning just enough revenue to cover the property taxes and insurance. That way, it would end up being 100% no cost for us to use. I hoped to schedule guests…
Preparing for your (rental) guests
Steve and I are very deadline driven. Renting out our cottage means that the spring cleaning that should be done, actually gets done in preparation for our rental guests arriving for the summer season. We always want everything to be absolutely perfect but we’ve learned…
How we afforded purchasing a cottage
Now we’re not blessed with a lot of money. My husband and I both have decent jobs but between the mortgage, the kids’ hockey expenses and all the other bills, there wasn’t a lot left over. However we were blessed to be in a housing…
Furnishing our first cottage
I love home decorating. I mean I LOVE home decorating. So when it came time to furnish the cottage I was in heaven. But I had to keep reminding myself that this is a cottage and not our city home. We live in a city…
A fight over a tent trailer or how I became a cottager
He would email me at work link after link to used tent trailers on Craigslist or drag me over to the computer to look in the evenings. I became fed up and said (a little loudly) that I didn’t want to be stuck having to…