We bought a camp!

[ThisAlarm7]

Awesome! My wife and I would love to get something like that one day.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Given some of the extra expenses, this one may be available soon!   

I know a lot of folks are going to crap on this brand, but I have to say that I have really been appreciated the Worx brand.  I know it's not as well known or fancy as the yellow guys, or the other orange and black guys, or the day glow green guys or the red guys, but I have to say that I have been quite pleased with the Worx PowerShare tools.

So far I have two lawn mowers, two whippersnappers (one each at the house and now at the camp), a leaf blower, a drill and now a chain saw/pole saw.  It's only a 14" bar, but I have to say that anything that it can't handle is likely a job I probably shouldn't be doing myself anyway.

So far we have used all of them at the camp (except the mower and whipper snapper at the house, duh) and with the number of batteries I have (five of the large ones, two of the smaller ones), we haven't really found ourselves wanting too often.

Now I have my eye on the angle grinder as well, because neither of the angle grinders I currently own are battery powered.

Def

[Whoey]

It needs a name.  Something like Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp.  Or Camp David.   

Maybe Camp Tranquility.

You missed the obvious...

Grantanamo Bay...

[Vidar]

Any tool that does it job without too much fuzz is good enough I think.

Back in the day my father was cutting up some old oil tank under their basement. (The house was built on top so it could only be removed piecewise). He got a very cheap angle grinder for the job - like USD 12 or so. The shop guaranteed it to work or they would replace it for free.

Several hours later my father got some break time every time the motor failed, while my mother had been back at the shop 4 times with said burnt out angle grinders. And without any questions asked she had gotten a replacement from the shop as promised. A bit inconvenient but a lot of work done for USD 12.

[BPRoberts]

I have a couple Worx tools. They've always done alright by me. For the amount I use them, "good enough and cheap" is a winner.

[gustophersmob]

You missed the obvious...

Grantanamo Bay...

That’s brilliant!

[Alan K.]

That looks like quite a worthy project.  I hate to say it, but no matter how long you make your "to do" list it is only going to cover the things you have to do so far.  You will discover more projects that need doing the deeper you get into it.  Not saying that's a bad thing, but it is a fact I hope you're prepared for. 

[stuntzombie]

Just remember, if you find an odd, old book bound with a strangely familiar material and weird incantations inside, DON'T READ FROM IT!


Seriously though, it looks like a nice peaceful place. I hope you get to really enjoy it soon.

[Grant Lamontagne]

That looks like quite a worthy project.  I hate to say it, but no matter how long you make your "to do" list it is only going to cover the things you have to do so far.  You will discover more projects that need doing the deeper you get into it.  Not saying that's a bad thing, but it is a fact I hope you're prepared for. 

I have been a homeowner for 18 (ish) years now and I find it's better to think about a home as a complex machine rather than a static object.  The potential for things going wrong is pretty much a constant issue and when it does, it is likely to affect many other things as well. 

My house is worse than usual as it is actually a Triplex, so I have three kitchens, three bathrooms, three sets of laundry machines etc to manage

And now I have added a fourth, and it's 200 KMS away.  What was I thinking?   

Def

[kottskrapa]

Looks lika a fun project, lot to do but fun thing to do together! Will follow this and cheer on from the other side of the globe 

Really nice doors to, I just came up, sun is shining and I can imagine walking up to does doors with a cup of coffee and head out to the nice summer morning air

[Grant Lamontagne]

Sadly it's not all fun and games- for example, these Bluetooth support beams are not as reliable as we initially expected!   

This was expected, but we'd intended to do it ourselves.  Unfortunately it's having to be remediated before the jacking and leveling can be completed so we have had to hire a local carpenter to deal with it.

That's not the best news for our budget, but it does get us a step further a little sooner, so no complaints overall.

Def

[BPRoberts]

Wifi support beams seem to be sturdier to me. Obviously wired is best, but sometimes you can't get them where you want them.

 

[Yadda]

Name the camp contest?  My entry is MeGra Fir Shores.

[Whoey]

My actual entry would probably be:

Vastdeep manor

Might be a tad too nerdy, but I'm sure Grant will appreciate it

[WhichDawg]

“DroneYakers”

KayRones camp for little girls & boys

[Yadda]

Meg-Gra-La

[ThundahBeagle]

Here are a few more photos- including a couple of shots of me being victorious after getting the old wood stove out.

Also, a couple of shots in the attic.  I am seriously thinking about opening up the attic to the main part of the house, and keep the ceiling only over the bedrooms and bathroom.

I think it will greatly open the place up and feel much bigger, even though at 720 sq ft it isn't really small.

But, opening up the ceiling will also allow me to (eventually) put in a skylight, which is a feature I love in a house.

Def

I can say that our main rooms are open almost all the way up, with skylights, and our bedroohsve the lower ceiling.

That really does make a difference to helping the family areas be and feel more open

And I do like board & Barton siding as well..  nice place with a lot of potential

[Grant Lamontagne]

For the time being we will be leaving the ceiling in place.  The roof supports are pretty close together so it's not like it would be hugely opened up if we did.  We will test drive it as is for now- there's a lot bigger priorities to get at in the meantime!   

We just got home from another weekend there.  We met up with a carpenter that is going to replace the front sill for us as it is extremely rotten.  Last week I had torn apart the deck, which was relatively new (maybe 2015-2019?) and it turns out it was attached poorly which caused all of the water to flow into and stay on the sill, which is what caused all of the rot. 

So, it's a good thing I tore the damned thing off. 

But, I made sure to leave some of the old deck framework standing so I can "repair the deck" rather than "replace the deck" because replacement requires a building permit, while repairing means the town can stay the smurf out of my smurfing business.

And I mean that in the nicest way..... 

Right now the house is boarded up to keep it from shifting while it is temporarily blocked up so the carpenter can replace all of the rotted studs pictured above- they actually went about 2/3's the length of the house.  The house is 36 feet long and the deck was nineteen feet, which means 19 of those 36 feet are rotted.   

Anyways, the place looks awful right now but will probably look much better in a week or two.

Since we couldn't get inside to keep cleaning we ended up just doing a few things around the yard to clean up and then went to enjoy the lake.  This photo was taken from about 40 feet out into the lake, where the water was just over my knees.  It was very warm and quite pleasant, and I figure there is a drop off another 20-25 feet out or so.  When I get my kayaks and/or snorkeling gear out there I will know for sure. 

Def

[pfrsantos]

I'm not sure if he wants "gland" in the name.   

Why not?! Gland Lamontagne sounds nice!

 

[ReamerPunch]

Multitoolandia
Will you be issuing passports soon?

[Grant Lamontagne]

Someday when Multitool Island becomes a reality, yes.

Def

[Alan K.]

I think a secret handshake would be appropriate.

[Vidar]

Lets go all in and top it! Two secret handshakes and both hands. 

[Yadda]

It won't feel like home until you've skinny dipped in the lake.

[Fireman]

It won't feel like home until you've skinny dipped in the lake.

Beautiful place, but that water has to be COLD. 

[Vidar]

The ice water bathers says cold water is very refreshing, healthy and character building.. 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Beautiful place, but that water has to be COLD.

Actually, the water is remarkably warm because the lake is quite shallow, at least from all I have seen of it.  And we are currently in a drought so the lake is even shallower, and with a month of 25-35C days, it's almost like bath water right now.

We went up on Friday after I got off work and intended to work on the place some more on Friday evening and again Saturday morning before making the hour long trek to the dump before they closed at noon.

However, due to a series of unfortunate events we weren't able to do much work when we got there Friday evening.

The house is not yet inhabitable due to small animal leavings, and it was getting quite late by the time we got there on Friday- we had just enough daylight left to pitch a tent, then sit outside and enjoy an adult beverage before heading off to bed.

Unfortunately the only clean, open area for a tent right now is on a bit of a slope and I found myself spending more of the night flat up against the wall of the tent and unable to roll uphill to get away from it, as Megan and a small dog had rolled into me.

It was a very unpleasant night and I didn't sleep much. Needless to say, I was not in a very adventurous mood on Saturday morning

Here is a pic of Dasher in his camp chair (yes, he has his own, we can't have him laying in the dirt like some kind of dog  ) and another pic of him "helping" me pump up the air mattress.

The front wall has been rebuilt, and new windows and sliding door have been put in to replace the old broken French doors and windows with rotted frames and giant holes, so the critters can no longer sneak in.  At least, not that way.

There are still several older windows in the place, but as they aren't rotted or in rough shape I don't see any reason to replace them

As you can see, the water side wall is looking really good, and we are getting quite a view from it, especially once we clean out a few more trees outside.

I had also brought my Sports Pal canoe and I was looking forward to a short but much needed adventure.  Unfortunately that didn't happen as we just ran out of time.

I have left the canoe there in hopes of getting another chance next week.

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

After a month of owning this cabin, we have made our FIFTH run to the dump and have finally succeeded in entirely cleaning out ONE bedroom.   

Two more bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room left to go.

Seriously, we have prioritized things, so there is a lot less in all of the rooms, and the rest should go pretty quickly now.  Even though the rest of the rooms look bad, they shouldn't be too difficult to take care of now that the major furniture and appliances are out.

The second photo below shows the second bedroom, which will be the next room we focus on and then the third bedroom in the next photo.

That room is in the middle of the house, about midway down the length on the street side.  If you look at the living room photos, it's behind the brick wall where the wood stove was.

We don't need three rooms, so we are planning to cut out where the window is and put another exterior door in there, and use that as a mud and gear room.  Right now the only access to the house is the sliding door on the water side, and we would like to have another entrance (or exit) on the opposite side.

But that's the overall plan- there is at least a few more days where I dress up like an extra from an alien autopsy film before we get there.

Just kidding- that's one of my snorkel masks.  We wear regular dust masks inside, nothing so dramatic.  I just thought this would be funny....

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

Overall the job is going well and a lot faster than we had initially planned. 

Unfortunately this has come at additional cost, so a few other projects we'd hoped to have done this year will have to wait.  That's okay though, as we still have a lot of stuff to keep us occupied!

The wood pile on the living room is the interior wall from the water side that had to be torn out to replace the exterior and supports for that wall.  We will probably trash it, but for now we wanted to keep some and experiment on it with colored stains and things so we don't mess up the remaining walls.  We may also keep some of it on the off chance that we need to patch some of the existing walls as well.

There are a lot of dump trips left to go and a lot of sweat left to give before it's reasonable but I think we have come a long way already and the place is really starting to shape up.

It may not look like much in the photos, but having the floor leveled and re enforced, having the rotted wall replaced, new windows and one clean room really is starting to show the potential of this place.

We bought it for $135k but I'd say that what we have done so far has put it in the $200k realm of we were looking to resell.  Which we aren't, but it's nice to see the progress.

Def

[SteveC]

Looks like you are making good progress for the amount of time you've spent there