We started going up there almost as soon as the snow had melted, while the mosquitos were still thick in the air (in and out of the cottage!) and the trees were still trying to grow leaves. We were still far far from being able to go swimming – a misunderstanding with our water pump led me to peel off my pants and test the waters sometime in late May, and I can tell you, even the dog couldn’t swim in it. It was cuh-cuh cold. But we did have running water and a propane stove and lights and fridge and oh man did we have a lot of projects lined up for this year.
I am pleased to report that we have managed to accomplish much of what we set out to do in 2013. During our first chilly weekend I focused on giving Nora a place to sleep – a junior bed bought off of a friend - and had luckily found a giant Ikea bed net somewhere in our belongings, which was necessary due to the aforementioned mosquito infestation. Mom made up Nora’s curtains and I went to Ikea for some Jr. bedding and rugs to cover up the particleboard, and now Nora’s got a cute and cozy room that she can sleep and play in.
Next I built us a bed. We’d been sleeping on an old futon frame that we’d gotten in the Ikea scratch and dent ages ago, back when we were living like a couple of 28-year-olds in their first house. It was our tv couch and spare room, back in the day. Problem is, we were using it with a queen-size mattress (newly purchased) and the futon frame is really a double so the sides were floppy, and Nora rolled off of it more than once. I even rolled off of it a few times. Add to that the fact that a few bolts were missing from the central hinged section of the frame, and it was slightly sloped down to my side ….. we needed a bed. So I went under the cottage and found a bunch of wood, bought the queen-sized wooden slats at Ikea (yay Ikea, well-represented in our cottage), and built a bed. It is a solid bed. I moved the futon frame out of there but it lingered at the side of our room like an albatross, until this past weekend when I re-purposed it into a bench for the screen porch.
Add some more mom-made curtains (both sets of curtains made with the fabric I coveted oh so long ago and finally got over the winter), and the turquoise chair that set off my kitchen renovation, and the orange shelf that I started to paint LAST YEAR and only finished this spring, and the bedroom is dunzo.
I made it my life’s mission to finish off the screen porch this spring, somewhat during a timeframe when a screen porch would be necessary. While I didn’t manage to finish it while the bugs were at their peak, it sure is nice to sit out there and not worry in late summer evenings when the sun goes down and the air starts humming. I cannot tell you how much I have come to loathe mosquitos. Anyway, the porch was built in a kind of funky way that made it nearly impossible to fit the screens in but I am pleased to say it’s (mostly) done. There are still a few tiny gaps, but mosquitos are dumb, and they haven’t really found them yet. We ate our first dinner out on the screen porch this past very hot Saturday, just before this bench went in. We had tacos.
Here’s the other end of the screen porch, just for a full picture
There were a few more major projects that we needed to get done before our cottage is 100% usable. While our bathroom had a door and a flushable toilet, it did not have its sink or shower hooked up yet. I went through a few ideas for both; originally the sink was going to be an enamel farm bowl with a hole cut out of it. Then I gave up on that and bought the round kitchen sink from Ikea of about the same dimensions, and I bought a raw-edge (and raw top, sides, and bottom as it turns out) thick piece of pine from our wood guy and sanded the snot out of the top, cut it to size, varnished it, added some legs (with birch log spacers as the legs were too short) to make a vanity. I bought a slick Ikea tap, and finally this weekend my brother plumbed it all in. So now we can brush our teeth and wash our hands in the bathroom, instead of at the kitchen sink!
An the pièce de résistance: the shower stall. Originally I was looking for this stock tank:
And was going to get a hole cut into it, a curtain rod that went all around, and just use that as the shower stall/bathtub. Well, luckily I had a real hard time tracking down the exact right tank, and instead, we decided to make the best use of the space by putting in a corner shower basin – the most petite one we could find, since the room’s not that big. It’s white vinyl, which I wanted to avoid, but then I had a brain wave when it came time to decide what to put on the walls around the tub, and my mind fell on galvanized tin roofing. It’s relatively cheap, relatively easy to install (without all the snipping required to go around fixtures, windows, etc – it’s two pieces), and it has the same look and feel as the stock tank while keeping the walls totally waterproof. However, since the shower basin was intended for use with a glass wall, it has a very low lip, and I so we had to buy a shower head that rains straight down, rather than one that blows the water on a diagonal right at the shower curtain. I bought a nice little unit with a cost comparable to a standard shower head. My superhero little brother installed it all last week, and it is fabulous.
When he’s got some time he’s also going to make us a curved shower curtain rod with phalanges, to attach to either wall, and that gingham shower curtain will be hung up. I bought a stock tank quite similar to that original one, but for $40, and it fits right into the shower base and under the tap – it is Nora’s bathtub, my laundry tub, you name it.
Next up, I am working on (and when I say “I am working on”, I mean the team that includes my dad who is cutting the tiles, my friend who is supplying the tiles) tiling the bathroom floor. It’s a bit of a job but in the end, the tiles are free, and we will have a ceramic tile floor. Add a nice white bathmat (not an expensive one, I have a black dog) and it’ll be pretty freaking lovely when it’s all done.
The other big project is the loft. Last year the loft was there but it had no ladder and no railings, so it was this big space that we’d heard was stunning (from the builder) but we’d never used. We couldn’t get up there. So this year we bought a nifty set of wooden pull-down attic stairs (a unit that comes as one piece and is simple to install), put it in, and I am building railings out of pine and steel chicken fencing. The top railing’s still not on because I have to order some nice 2x6 pine, but you get the picture. Once we’ve finished the molding around the stair opening, we are going to install a hatch/trapdoor, so that when kids are upstairs and the ladder is down, they won’t fall down the hole. This is the one dog-free area in my entire world. We are going to get a really nice rug up there, and I’m gonna build another bed, and neither of them will ever be covered in black fur.
So we progress. Also done so far in 2013: a very tiny, very productive veggie garden (I basically stuck my seedlings right into a bag of compost, which took me about 3 minutes), the beginnings of a wee perennial garden (varying success, it is all sand), some shelving and a future cupboard for Nora’s room, some more steps down to the water, hubby has been clearing branches and burning all of our scrap, so we are developing a firepit area, and the hillside – once a sandy wasteland – is now a thickly-growing thatch of grasses and wildflowers and the trees we’ve been planting, and it’s full of frogs, bird nests, interesting bugs and garter snakes. Hubby also took out every screen in the cottage and added foam tape around it, as we learned early in the season that the bugs were getting around the screens and into the cottage. Relief.
And now that the nice hot weather is starting to hit, we are mostly finished our indoor projects, and will be able to relax a bit when the Austrians arrive next week. Next up: attaching our dock to land. It’s been three years. It’s time.
