The Lake House: A Tour

In the middle of prepping the farm for winter, traveling for work, stocking up on hay, traveling for fun, and a few unexpected life events (because why not, life?) this happened…

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My mom and I took possession of The Lake House!

(Like, my mom literally got the keys last week while I was on an airplane, and I had 30 minutes to run down there an snap a few pics during the 12 hours I was home before I leave again, and at some point we have to start moving her stuff in, but there are currently 30 bales of hay in the back of my truck, and I’m probably not going to sleep for the next month because I’m too busy thinking about how I totally need to custom build a wooden canoe a la Trent Prezzler (If you don’t follow his Instagram, you should.))

Also, this is what it’s like being in my brain right now–it’s just a series of never-ending nested parentheticals all the way down–so I’m just going to stop and we can take a tour of the house.

Directly inside the front door is the mudroom/laundry room…

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We’re thinking a lot about the most effective use of this space, and I can already see that I’m going to be build a lot of cabinets this winter (for both houses.)

The one bathroom in the house is also off this room.

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From the mudroom, you go right into the kitchen…

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The kitchen is a really good size and has a lot of storage…

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This is an early 1900’s house (built in a similar style to my farmhouse, just on a smaller scale.) From what we can tell there have been 3 additions to the house over time, and that usually ends up with some less-than-efficient room layouts, but, you know that’s the fun of old houses.

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The kitchen is fully functional and has a great built-in cabinet from back in the day. At some point we may want to look at re-doing the layout, but that’s years in the future. (Because let’s be honest, my own kitchen is still years from being “done.”)

The best part, though, is that the kitchen is fairly open to the living room AND has a great few through the back windows to the lake.

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The living room is cozy, has lots of light, that great view, and a working fireplace!

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We have no idea how we’re going to work the furniture layout between these two rooms (I’m seeing more built-ins in my future though) but we’ve got some leftover/hand-me-down furniture we’re going to give a shot for now and then go from there.

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Back off the kitchen is a small hallway that goes to the two downstairs bedrooms, and a ladder/staircase to the loft…

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This will be my mom’s room…

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The bedrooms are small, but have good-sized closets.

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The downstairs guest room is also small, but again, has a couple of good-sized closets.

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And then there’s the loft…

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It’s not as big or as tall as it looks in this pic. My mom and I can comfortably stand up there, but we’re basically hobbit-sized.

We’re still planning to put a couple of beds up here though. (And maybe some storage, but to be honest, there’s plenty of that at the farm a half-mile down the road.)

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That’s basically it for living spaces inside the house. It’s small, but just the right size for my mom (and all the guests we plan to have here.)

The outside, though, that’s where the fun will be…

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From the living room you can walk right out on to the enormous back deck…

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Two levels, three sets of stairs, lots of space we need to figure out what to do with…

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(The playset is not staying. The family we bought the house from actually just moved one house over, so we’ll help them move this to their back yard eventually.)

One thing I am oddly excited about though is this…

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A legit root cellar!

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My own basement won’t work for root vegetable storage (and I’ve toyed with a lot of ideas over the years, including building my own root cellar out in the field somewhere) so you can bet I’m going to be building all kinds of storage for vegetables down here eventually.

And then, of course, the thing that normal people would be most excited about…

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The lake!

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It’s a good-sized lake and I’m excited for morning workouts in the kayak (which I fully intend to do right up until the lake freezes over.) Also, add “kayak storage” to the top of the list of projects I’ll be tackling at this place ASAP.

I mean, we are so excited, but it also doesn’t quite feel real yet. The one thing we’ve said is that the Lake House will not be a thing that stresses us out (yet), so we’re not starting any big projects any time soon. (Ha. Anyone want to take bets?)

In the short term we’ll probably paint, figure out the furniture situation, and enjoy the water as much as possible before we enter the deep freeze of Michigan winter. Then I’ll turn my attention back to the Liberty House to get the kitchen finished (finally) so that we’re free to work on the lake house next summer!

21 Responses

  1. Congrats! It looks like an amazing location! I like the loft. I like the huge kitchen and had a stranger urge to move the fridge to the wall of cabinets between the two regular sized doorways….and put floor to ceiling cabinets on either side of it…using the existing if possible. I would love to see a sectional in the living room. I really look forward to seeing what you guys do!

    1. I was thinking the same thing about moving the fridge where the built in cabinets are and make new ones. 🙂

    2. Ha. My mom also has feelings about that fridge… we’re trying NOT to start a huge kitchen reno right now though (and you know how those things go… “oh we’ll just move this one cabinet holy shit why haven’t I had a floor in my kitchen for 5 years.”)

  2. I grew up in Minnesota “the land of lakes” – we had a lake house. Lake house descriptions. The front of the house / front door / faces the lake. Telling everyone this would get me strange looks over the years. ie: pick me up at the back door. Yes, our back door faces the street. After all who’s front door enters the kitchen. LOL

  3. Another vote for moving the fridge 🙂 Not sure what I think about that half height thing blocking the doorway between the mudroom and kitchen. At least now you have a refuge not under construction.

  4. What a great property – and just 1/2 a mile away. That’s so cool for you and your Mom! I know the projects are just flipping through your head like an old rolodex, lol!

  5. Long-time lurker, never a commenter. What an awesome place, and great story! Had to be faith! Good thing the front-loaded washer and dryer are stack-able, it could probably go in the corner and out of the way of that nice window, right?

    1. Hm, probably not the way the hookups are currently set up. Plus if we moved them to the left of the window they’d block the doorway, and if we move them to the right, they’d also block part of the other window.) I’ll likely build a cabinet around them and two built-ins on either side!

  6. Cute house, I love the root cellar. Those appliances look so hugely out of place, and the kitchen looks awkwardly large, like you could rearrange it to make it smaller, and have a dinning space or add on to the living space. I think a claw foot tub would be a great addition to that bathroom. Good luck with whatever you end up doing, but the house does look like it could be a bit more functional with some projects.

  7. I just wanted to say congratulations! And put a plug in for getting a stand up paddleboard.

    My sister has 4 kayaks (1 double, 3 singles) and everybody is always waiting to use the paddleboard that they bought on impulse at a boat show. It’s a 12.6 Catalina SUP. It’s not an inflatable but it’s light and is used by my 5′ niece up to her 5’9″ dad.

    I love it because it’s easier for me to get on than into the kayak and if I fall off in the middle of the lake I can still get back on (I have Huntington’s so my balance is off and my muscles sometimes twitch). I also love it because you can really see into the water and it allows us to get closer to the shore where the wildlife hangs out.

    For the winter I recommend a kicksled – I have the traditional Scandinavian one with the seat at the cottage and this one skating on the Rideau Canal (http://www.footbike.ca/-kickspark-max-snow-kicksled-en,2,56 ).

    I hope you and your Mom take lots of time to enjoy the outdoors – best part being on a lake!

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