A big new project to build our lakeside summer place that will serve as our lake cabin and summer home.
I recently shared a big new project on my Instagram Reels and had so many responses about it and questions from readers. This made me realize that I should share a whole post about this project! So many of you were shocked to see our build progress and had no idea we were building again. It’s about time I stop and share what exactly is ahead of us right now. Readers also wondered WHY we are building again and WHAT?!! So, here’s the long story behind our lake cabin in development, a.k.a. lakeside summer spot…
You can see a mini-tour of this project on my REELS on Instagram! Check it out HERE.
Where did this story begin?
This whole story actually started a few years ago when we were living in our lake house full time. If you’ve been around a long time, you may remember the original home we lived in when I started this blog over ten years ago! It went through many changes during the time we lived there and served us well as a young family.
In 2018, a vacant property came up for a building across the pond from where we were living at the time. Now building lots and vacant land ON the water are few and far between in Sproat Lake. Even though we loved our house, we always wanted to build it from scratch. So we quickly negotiated and had an accepted offer within a few days. The offer was of course based on the sale of our then home.
Fast forward a few months and our home had not sold. We decided to give up on our dream of building and let the offer go. But we had one month left on the contract with our realtor to sell our home and decided to ride it out. Sure enough…in the last week of our listing we received two offers and ended up selling at asking price on the last day of our listing. It was CRAZY and we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to do…
Relocation and repair in
This made us reevaluate our plans and we decided to buy a house in the city (about 15 to 20 minutes by car from the lake). We bought our “forest house” which we continued to live in while we renovated it over the next 18 months. At one point, while I was making dinner in our “construction kitchen,” pieces of insulation and drywall fell from the ceiling into the spaghetti sauce I was stirring on our only stove.
New construction begins
That was it!
I was sick of renovating and we decided to buy a lot up the road so we could finally build a house from scratch. Of course, we had to finish the renovations first. By the time the renovations were finished and we had lived in it for a while, we weren’t sure if we wanted to sell it and move again eventually. But… still, that desire to try a new build from scratch was there, so we went ahead with that plan.
Our first summer cabin on the lake
Fortunately, during our time living in the city, we had purchased a ½ summer cabin style duplex on Sproat Lake. We were able to move into it full time while we were building and updated the interior with fresh paint and decor to make it more homey. If you’ve been following along for a while, you might remember the double cabin (and the changes we made to it)…
The dream property
After three months of living there, mid-term on our new building, our absolute DREAM property became available on Sproat Lake. It is a vacant property with a gentle south-facing slope, on the shore of the lake. It’s also on a very quiet road sandwiched between our in-laws’ homes so it’s still close to family. (We currently live in a subdivision ½ block across from our family). This was our dream lakefront property and seemed to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. So we went in with our best offer and ended up acquiring it the day before Halloween 2020.
Our newly built home
A few months later we moved into our almost finished new home in the city and began to settle in. This is where we currently live and we love its convenient central location. At this stage in life, we are super busy with boys’ sports and activities. We love the ease of taking them where they need to go without having to go in and out of town multiple times a day. The boys are currently 12 and 15 years old, so we don’t expect the driving requirements to drop over the next few years. I *think* we’ll be in this newly built home for quite some time.
Plans for the lake property
It was a LONG process of figuring out exactly how to achieve our goals. We plan to build our full time house on the lake property in about 3-5 years. By then we really wanted to build a smaller living space to live in during the summer months. We also want it to function as a garage and storage space down the road.
To accommodate both, I drew up a plan for a large garage with less living space. We plan to live in it for the next few summers as our summer cabin/home. It will later function as a studio/garage when we move to the lake full time. We located the building near the back or road side of the property. That leaves plenty of room in the middle of the property for the full home he hopes to build down the road.
Construction of the summer place / future garage
In British Columbia there are strict guidelines if you want to build a home from scratch. You must either have a builder who can offer a new home warranty or you must pass an exam to be certified as an owner-builder. I enrolled in an online course and took the exam last summer. In this way, I can act as the main contractor of this construction. Coordinating all the details and working on the deals was a lot of fun, but it also turned out to be a lot more work than you might think. At the same time, it has been an incredible learning process and I feel much more informed and better qualified to continue working with others on their projects and renovations (check out my new services website here).
What exactly are we building??
The design of the lake cabin is very simple and modern with a canopy style exterior. It is just over 1,300 square feet total with approximately 650 square feet of living space. The cabin section is one to one side with one of the bedrooms at the rear extending into the garage side. The lake cabin portion of the building has an open concept living/kitchen area, a small bathroom with a washer, as well as two smaller bedrooms. The boys will have one bedroom with bunk beds and we will have the other. We also plan to use the garage in the summer as an extra place for the boys and their friends to hang out. In the winter we will use the side of the garage to store our boat and summer gear.
Where the building is now
The insulation is done and we are currently waiting for plasterboard. Once the drywall is complete, we get to the fun part. We plan to paint, install the flooring and do the kitchen all by ourselves. Plus there will be plenty of properties to deal with once the weather improves.
Now that the construction aspects are falling into place, I have been working on all the plans and details for the design and furniture. As I mentioned, we plan to do most of the finishing work from flooring to painting, kitchen, bathroom and of course all the furnishings and decor. I’ll be sharing some inspiration posts with my decor plans in this small space soon!
I’m really excited to get in there and get my hands dirty. I can’t wait to share more glimpses of this project as we head into spring. The hope is to be in it for this summer! We love our summers at the lake…
