Boat Lift Cover

Over the past few weeks, our new lake house neighbors suggested we should take down the boat lift cover since its not covering anything and it is just getting dirty and worn.   That's our lift on the right and the smart neighbor's on the left who have already removed theirs since they have no boat in their lift this season.  (Isn't the sun peeking through the trees beautiful?!?)

Removing a boat lift cover is easy... if you have a boat in the lift!  Now I totally wish I had pictures of Ed balancing precariously on the lift with a ladder laid out across it while using an empty paint roller on an extension stick to unsnap all of the snaps but unfortunately I don't.  Take a moment to picture this in your mind......... got it?  I was too busy worrying he'd fall into the lake or hurt himself.  Even the neighbor came out at the end to "supervise"!   He was successful and rolled it up to bring home for cleaning.

Here is the cover all laid out on our driveway at home.  Isn't it sexy when you see a man cleaning?!?

 

He's making progress...

 

All clean and ready for next year when we get a boat!  Well, I hope we get a boat next year!  We do have a lake house after all ;)

Our Bedroom!

When we closed on July 19 we had very little with us at the lake house.  We went to Wal-Mart and purchased necessities such as toilet bowl cleaner (see previous post), toiletries, beverages, food, etc.  We also purchased an air mattress as we didn't have our truck yet to bring our bed.  We thought it would be fun, like camping.  Ok, maybe Ed thought it would be fun since I do NOT camp.  We cleaned and cleaned Friday night and were exhausted by 10pm.  We pulled out our new air mattress only to find out the pump that came with it was battery-powered!  We did not buy batteries - UGH!  So for about TWO hours, we took turns BLOWING IT UP BY MOUTH!  The first 15 minutes I was so mad at Ed (it was his choice to go with the cheaper air mattress) and then we just turned to each other and started cracking up.  How ridiculous we looked!   After 2 weekends of sleeping on the air mattress (aka floor), it was time to get our bed there and finish up our bedroom!  Can you spy the mattress in the rearview mirror?

Below are some of our before pictures of the bedroom (from the listing & after we closed).  As you may have noticed by now, the previous owners painted the woodwork, ceiling and walls all one color.

 

 

 

 

In keeping with the bathroom (and eventually the entire lake house), we painted the trim white and the walls Ypsilanti Skies. 

 We also ripped up the "newer" carpeting, well it was in the listing that it was "newer".  It was not!  Luckily for us they only used a few strips of carpet tape so it came up easy.

 

After the boring painting & flooring came the fun decorating touches.  We decided to go with Dylan's Garden quilt from Kohl's (sale + 30% off + Kohl's cash = great deal!) which will eventually match the pillows/bolsters for the banquette area.  Notice the small side table?  That was from the thrift store we picked up for only $6/pair.

We lowered the shelves to create more of a dresser-height top and we bring our clothes in the hanging bags.  The mirror is from Ed's grandparents!  (Also located on the shelves is our laptop which is a joke because we have yet to finish one entire movie at the end of our hardworking days, one of us always falls asleep!  Ok, one of us is usually me!)

We decided not to replace the closet rod as we don't plan on bringing many clothes that require hanging while we're at the lake.  Instead we decided to reuse a piece of furniture that was left behind - see the wall shelf on the left?

It's much more practical where we hung it, don't you think?  We can keep our lake towels and hoodies nearby with extra storage space for blankets and miscellaneous items.

Our little bedroom feels like home now and I am thrilled not to be sleeping on an air mattress!

Cheese & Thrifting Fun with a Little Work Completed

While we had decided to blog our before & after pics (we will at the end of this blog), we thought it would be fun to share a little of our fun traveling to the lake house this past weekend. 

Moving more goodies!

Friday afternoon we set off for Fair Oaks Dairy Adventure (www.fofarms.com).  "A family destination conveniently located between Chicago and Indianapolis, Fair Oaks Farms is the perfect destination for any playful soul. Hang out with family and friends, chow down on the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the land, learn about sustainable dairy farming and watch a baby calf being born."  YEP, they had me at grilled cheese!  Fair Oaks even offers a Two-Day Pass for families but we decided just to swing through for grilled cheese and to pick up some cheese for the lake house.  We tried the grilled cheese, quesadillas and milkshake.  While the grilled cheese was tasty, I can't honestly say it was the best in the land.  What we can share is the salsa paired with the quesadillas was delic (sadly, not sold separately) and the butter pecan milkshakes rocked!  We left Fair Oaks with full tummies and 4 cheese bricks, a roll of crackers and little to-go cups of salsa.

We always enjoy the back roads when traveling so thought it would be fun to stop in at Jasper Junction when we came across it (www.cdcresources.org/stores/).  "In 2005, Jasper Junction was opened 5 miles north of Rensselaer at the intersection of US 231 and SR 14. This facility has enough space in the former Weinberg’s to have both a Thrift Store and Booth Mall where some 80 booths sell a huge variety of items ranging from collectables to antiques, furniture and flea market treasures."  What we didn't realize is they should offer the Two-Day Pass here, not at Fair Oaks!  Wow - so much to see! It was a good thing the store closes at 6pm or we could have spent the entire evening checking out all the goodies. 

We were pretty excited to find these nesting tables, perfect size for our little bedroom at the lake house.  They were a steal for $6 for the pair!  We will definitely stop back at both Fair Oaks & Jasper Junction!

As we only have a few more nice summer weekends, we didn't get much done around the lake house.  Our new neighbors invited us boating and well, who could pass that up!  We did complete a small project here and there including our outside little storage closet. 

We had mentioned that we would try to reuse any materials we could salvage so thought this was a pretty good use of them!

Sign left behind by previous owners.  Indiana Beach is about 5 miles south of us.

Cup hooks were found in & on the kitchen cabinets.

The Beach sign was a PERFECT fit inside the closet!  No trimming needed and now we're a little more organized outside at no additional cost.

 

Another small project completed, 100s more to go!

 



 

THE Bathroom

When we closed on the lake house (July 19, 2013), we both decided THE most important room to work on ASAP was the bathroom.  Apparently the previous owners did not own a toilet brush, cleaning supplies, or even care.  It was GROSS!   We both did agree to reuse building materials whenever possible so the vanity & over-the-toilet cabinet would stay.  We initially thought we'd keep the medicine cabinet however it fell apart when Ed tried to scrape layers of paint off.  We both wanted to replace the light fixture (the white rectangle above the outlet).

This was the bathroom when we bought it.  It is a lovely shade of "Apple Crisp" with sheet vinyl flooring.  Upon first look, its not really that bad, sans the color - which shows up better in this picture than the actual color.

The home inspector mentioned the lack of a GFI outlet but fortunately for us, Ed is very handy!
Oh, and did you notice how uneven the outlet is?  And the rust in the sink?

This is the toilet AFTER Super Iron-Out had been sitting on it for over SIX hours!  We replaced the toilet seat ASAP and it turns out a pummice stone combined with Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner (with the black label) will do amazing things to clean up a toilet!

Ahh... makes you want to take a shower, eh?  Again, it cleaned up amazing with some Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner.
Be warned though - take precautions with appropriate ventilation!  Ed needed to step outside about halfway thru cleaning this!  Finishing touches were complete with Purple Power.  It was also quite a sight when Ed brought the OUTside hose IN the house to rinse down the shower!

Up next:  Remove the flooring.  Turns out it had TWO layers of flooring and the bottom one had asbestos.
Ed stopped the project immediately and brought gloves, goggles & a mask from home for the following weekend of removal.  As you can imagine, we're a little freaked out about asbestos!
Once the flooring was removed, Ed added a  new sub-floor.

NOW, we're ready for the pretty pictures!!

Hey, check it out! A GFI outlet that is level!  Oooh and look at that beautiful new vanity light OVER the new medicine cabinet!!

We were able to reuse the over-the-toilet cabinet and cleaned it up nicely.
Sitting on top are guest towels waiting to be used by guests!

The finished bathroom!  
The color of the bathroom is Dutch Boy Ypsilanti Skies and will be used throughout the lake house.
Check out that flooring!  We got a great deal on it from HOBO in Joliet - only 69 cents a square foot!
We bought enough for the entire lake house.  Super easy to clean up as its actually vinyl strips of flooring.
We love our new shower curtain (Dragonfly Garden from Wal-Mart) and towels (on sale + 30% off Kohl's coupon + Kohl's cash = BIG savings!)  I sewed those little curtains for the window & under the sink (same vanity, just painted!).
 Notice the new recessed toilet paper holder?  It seems before that water would drip down on to the toilet paper when washing your hands so Ed fixed that too!

We're pretty darn proud of our hard work on this room!   We won't be embarrassed for guests to use our bathroom now!

We bought a lake house!

On July 19, 2013, Ed & I closed on "Our Happy Place" in Indiana.  Our very own little (aka 540 sq ft) lake house - that needs LOTS of work!  We are excited about this new adventure (I do love an adventure!) and thought it would be fun to blog our before and after pictures.  Welcome to "Our Happy Place!"

Our deck is almost as big as the entire lake house - LOL!

Our backyard on Lake Shafer.  Like the tire rim firepit?