Building The Love Shack

Spring started off in the normal way, with a list of projects.

While the weather in early Spring was still balancing off between wet and cool, Husband put in new floors in the Warrior’s Cottage. He worked steadily for several weekends to get it accomplished before they arrived.

His work efforts paid off as he finished the flooring in time for the weather to stable off. With the wind and the rain calming down, he went back to working outside with the plan to finish the screened-in porch.

We had completed the outside the year before, but the inside was waiting for us. All the supplies had been purchased the year before but hadn’t been installed because of the kitchen disaster in the Warrior’s Cottage.

With no disasters to deal with this year the sunporch was the first focus at the Love Shack.

The first thing on the to-do list was to install the screendoors which I’m sure Mr. Raccoon, who had made the sunporch his Winter home was not going to be pleased about.

Mr. Raccoon I might add was not a good house guest anymore than Mr. Mouse had been when he had his Winter party in the cottage. He like Mr. Mouse had no dignity and felt no upset in pooping in his Winter condo and he too liked to chew things. This time the damaged item was the outside carpet for the sunporch.

For the safety of the new wiring being put in, latches were added to the screened doors. Mr. Raccoon was going to have to Winter somewhere else.

Next came the wiring.

With the wiring finished we added the ceiling fan and the lighting.

Before we could go any farther on what seemed like the next step adding the fireplace, first the siding on the house had to get started. We couldn’t enclose the porch area and not put up the siding or we would have to take it all apart to do it later. Both would be a wasted step and wasted money.

At this point, I was pushed to make a final decision… What color do I want the cottage?

The decision was made, like everything else at the cottage, I wanted earth tones and that is what we did.

With the first of the siding up, we could now install the fireplace.

The fireplace chosen was electric. There were already three places to have a fire at the cottage. There is a large Fire Pit out back, the Chimenea on the front deck, and the Cast Iron Stove inside. With that in consideration, the purposes of this fireplace were only for warmth in the early Spring or late Fall while sitting out on the porch.

Soon after the fireplace was installed, the wood for the inside walls went up. And lo and behold… We had a dining area.

As the neighbors arrived we were pleased to show them the new addition made to the cottage and we whispered to them stating that big changes were about to start taking place.

We laughed when I started this rumor as it would be one of the first ones we had heard in years that would be true. In the first few weeks, (we bought the cottage seven years ago) we learned something really fast. It was a rumor mill and most of what was said was so far from the truth that we never believed any of it.

This was one of the drawbacks of living too close to your neighbors, but in all honestly, we found most of it to be funny. And me being me, I would deliberately tell someone something to see how long it would take to hear it back and wait to see what version of myself I would hear about. You know the game played in elementary school, it’s called the telephone game.

This is also how I chose who we would call neighbors friends and neighbors. Those who didn’t play won our friendship. Those who gossiped about their neighbors lost respect and trust.

We came up with our own name for the park seven years ago and it still sticks today. We called it Peyton Place. And it was full of Gladys Kravitz’s. Anyone who has ever lived in a small community or had a trailer in a trailer park will definitely know what I am referring to.

But the truth and the rumor that I started was simple, the Warriors were getting restless. We had other plans and they were starting to come to a definite decision.

Covid had changed people and their behaviors, we had seen it here too. We had also changed. We had learned to say no and not acceptable. We had also decided that living life to the fullest had become the most important thing to us and we were not doing it.

As for the sunporch, it was defiantly the most used area on the outside of the cottage this year. Lunch and dinner were on the porch for the rest of the season.

Many lovely conversations were shared there. For those who were invited to dine with us, the food, the view, and the friendships was what this room was made for and that had not changed.