2 Engineers Retired

Of course said shower needed plumbing and all the various doo-dads that are required to have a door that can close etc.   We are quite thrilled with the result. Beyond the shower and shed we also wanted to have an outdoor sink for washing hands without going inside.   Managed to find an interesting copper sink textured with what appeared to be a ball peen hammer.   It is likely meant to sit atop a bathroom counter – but given that there was not one of those, a matching base was constructed to attach the sink to the shed wall.   And yes, a ball peen hammer was used, and a long soak with some baking soda to darken the copper to match the sink.   Here is the result (the colour match is actually very close, unlike the photo)   Now – walls, water, a sink and a shed are all well and good but ultimately one needs to walk to the unit in order to take advantage of it all.     We were excited to find preformed concrete slabs that were made to (s...

Gratuitous Lake Shot   Back when we first decided to build on the property we knew that to do pretty much any construction we needed to be able to shower afterwards.   It did not have to be fancy, but it needed to have warm water, be private and not cost much since it was to be temporary. Hmmm We managed to buy a propane powered camping water heater that could hook up to a hose.   The end with the water pump went into the lake and we hooked the other up to a normal shower.   OK, point one covered.   The privacy and the cost thing worked out great.   Our cottage was built from an old one that had been taken down and there were cedar boards that had been previously used as a subfloor.   Not attractive, full of cut off old nails – but free tongue and groove cedar.   A day of assembly produced a functional temporary unit that did us for years – far longer than we had intended.   Over those years we did have to replace the water heater, and ha...

  Back a hundred years ago (or maybe 12 or so) when we bought our lake property it came with an old fiberglass canoe.   (The place also came with an ancient 80’s era travel trailer that was quite disgusting, but we prefer to forget about that) The canoe however did prove to be useful.   The mesh of its seats was so old that webbing was falling apart but given that, technically, you should be kneeling that seemed OK, at least for a while..... What a mess Our property is large and fronts on two (small) lakes.   One lake is quite open and that is where we chose to build our cottage.   The other lake is smaller and has several islands.   It is pretty to look at, but a tad (very) murky so not too pleasant to swim in.   The islands however create an excellent venue for canoeing.   As a result the canoe lived at that lake and was used from time to time if we hiked over there.   Over the years it has not gotten any younger, or cleaner, and the se...

Hobbies, a particularly relevant thing in the era of COVID-19.....   I spend my time puttering about in a couple of gardens, which poke along with varying degrees of success.   So what is this you may ask ????   We have 2 main areas where gardens have been attempted.    The first was a raised bed type that we installed by the solar panels when they were located at the lake edge.   The idea at that time was to plant raspberry bushes to soften the appearance of the panels if one was on the lake in a boat.    Plus, who does not like raspberries ?? Our first step was to build the frame that would support the soil for the bed.   This was straightforward as we had plenty of left-over used cedar from the cottage build.   Next was to fill it with soil.   For this we headed off to our local sand and gravel guy (no idea why we did that rather than go to a garden center, but I digress).    I have never ...

Hi All We get a lot of confused looks when we tell people where we live.  In this area, most folks that live on the lake also have a city home.  Or their lake building is accessible 12 months of the year.  Frankly, at some point, I am sure we will get a city place too, but for now living here has its advantages. Our lake first thing in the morning Cottage life in Ontario is mostly associated with vacation time and weekend fun.  It creates a refuge from the rest of the week and the rest of your life.  A place to recharge.  The amazing natural environment is a major draw – it feels like there is more oxygen in the air here, and the beauty is soothing on such a primal level.  But for many cottagers boating, water skiing, wake-boarding, and drinks on the dock are a huge part of the enjoyment.  But our place is a bit different – it is quiet, very dark at night (no one has wired in power), the lake is not busy (few people and power restr...

This old girl wanted to fight This was written in 2019, and for some reason got lost in Blogger purgatory (?).  So here goes Back to the lake... The urge hits us long before the weather is warm and the landscape changes. We love the change in our surroundings as we go from this The lake is a tad solid to this Summer is the time of hobbies for us.   Whether it is tinkering with the road, or with a car, or in the garden, summer allows us to take our time and putter away at whatever seems to catch our fancy at the moment. Road work is always there, and the road can always be improved.   This year the rains in our area of the country in the spring seemed never ending and areas of the road flooded that had never previously been underwater.    This causeway is a project from a previous year (it was improved a lot) and now it sports wildflowers growing naturally on the road edges (the water is a beaver pond with many wate...