Scott worked with the legendary Frank Roman to install the backup generator and heat pumps, one for the upstairs and big part of the house, and the other for the sunroom.

Scott and Thomas repaired the roof on the garage. A bigger job than Scott expected, but now it's nice and new.

In process

Another day Scott cleared brush from the river bank.

I started playing around in a 3D home reno app. I started to get excited about how nice the house could look. The rendering on these pics is odd; I only got the basics of the app down. So, for example, the back wall on the pic below is transparent, allowing you to see the back of the stove and fridge and the microwave and upper cabinet (hanging on the wall).

Other angles below. The ideas on the inside are to

• knock out the wall of the kitchen to open up the space
• extend the kitchen into the bathroom
• turn the two bedrooms down below into a new bathroom, a pantry, and an office/multipurpose room
• Move the barndoor to the office
• open up the opening into the sunroom
• build real stairs
• Put French or sliding doors on the back of the sunroom. We are butting heads on this one. I want it BAD and he doesn't

On the exterior, we will

• fix up the garage and turn it into his workshop
• build a new deck, patio, and dock
• clean up the landscaping
• put on a new roof
• redo the exterior siding

Of course, there is the infrastructure

• fix the septic system
• install a new cistern
• install 2 heat pumps for HVAC
• make the house MOUSE PROOF!

We were hanging with my BIL Dave and his girlfriend Elle. Elle was saying that her mother and stepfather owned a cottage on the Portage River, and they had gotten to the age where they had decided to sell it. My husband's ears perked up.

We went out to see it within days. Elle's sister Moe and her husband Matt have the house right next door, and they were doing the selling because they wanted to make sure the people who bought the cottage were not developers or AirBnb landlords etc. 

My husband fell in love instantly. The property is right on the river, and the cottage had been updated with a nice loft and sunroom. But many other items needed to be updated. I was uneasy about the musty smell, the evidence of rodents, the mosquitos, the hour drive from our home, the water situation (they had a cistern for toilets and showers but brought their drinking water in with them; if we moved there, we'd need a new cistern and to truck in water), the septic, while brand new, didn't function, and the garage was falling in. 

Plusses for me were the bald eagle's nest at the back of the property, the nature preserve across the river and another one just established on the property surrounding us, the neighbors Mo and Matt, and the fact that I knew Scott could fix anything and make it nice. Mostly, I could tell he wanted it really bad.  

So we bought it.

Exterior

Interior

More interior shots

The river view and the eagle's nest. In June 2024, there was a big storm, and the nest blew over.

There is a trail already, but they are going to make a bigger one eventually. In the time since we bought it, they put in a kayak launch next door and graveled the road leading to it.

We knew that the sunroom and the gabled loft were recent additions to the house. Later Scott learned that the kitchen and bathroom (front end of the house) were an earlier addition.
1. the earlier addition
2. the sunroom
3. the gable from the outside
4. the loft from the inside

Here are two photos. One is the front of the house before the loft addition. The other is the back or river side of the house before the sunroom addition. These photos were hanging on the walls when we took over ownership.

Comparison pics, back and front of house.