The sky is a light blue. Puffy low flying clouds sweep by. The wind is quite cool from the Northeast, creating wavelets on the water. There is a sailboat far upon the horizon. The morning sun highlights the rocky and scraggly bush coverings of Little Pike Bay Point. A hawk glides air currents, eyes searching the ground for a meal; the hummingbird is back sampling red flowers. There is the smell of Autumn in the air. It seems that summer has taken a respite. The grass is still green, yet, as we drive along the West Road, the Bury Road, Cemetery Road, the bush shows clusters of trees changing colors.
Standing back from the cottage, and looking at where the paint is peeling, it is increasingly evident that, before entering its 50th year, something has to be done. The cottage has withstood the weathering of 49 years of Northern clime's, and, if we want to have it for another 49 years, identifying and addressing what needs to be done has become a priority. Bud Boswell and Connie Collins were over to look at how much scraping, sanding and painting would be needed. Permanently removing the shutters that remain hung on the outside of the cottage is necessary since the bats have left the interior of the cottage and taken up residence behind the shutters, creating quite a mess and damage to the plywood of the shutters and exterior walls. Bud took out his jack knife and began poking at the front windows and found rotten sections, surprise, surprise, just were water is coming inside from beating rain storms. Caulking rotten wood will not address the issue. Looking at the front deck, and, in anticipation of our cottage's 50th Anniversary celebration August 1st and 2nd 2009, we decided we needed bench seating to accommodate the expected large group of celebrants. (Keep those dates open and look for your invitation.) Finally, the cottage has a mixture of two wire and three wire electrical system, which for those of you in the know, can make for surprise electrical outlet problems and blown fuses. So we will be upgrading from a 50 AMP service to probably 200 AMP service (apparently the price differential between 100 and 200 is not great) and bringing the electrical system up to "code."
The plan for this Fall is not to scrape, sand and paint the cottage, but to put on vinyl siding. For the front windows, we will be removing all the windows, put in an 8 foot central sliding glass door, expanding the glass to the full 22 foot width and of course floor to ceiling. We will have the windows made to order, double glass thermopane, no need to put up shutters again. The front deck will have more seating and stairs (off to the right as you leave the 3rd deck). There will be a new electrical system. The only thing we won't do now, is change the color of the roof, currently green, which may not match the "earth tones" of the new siding, but in another 10 years or so, we/you can do it in an earth red color which Kathy and I think would match the siding color. We have had input from neighbors who have either built new or put on "board and batten" siding, log look siding, vinyl vs aluminum vs wood. We have visited multiple recommended homes, sales places. We have looked online at what has been offered and talked to some people about design. When you come for the 50th Anniversary Celebration next year, you will see the new and improved cottage, it will have "curb" appeal.
