Back to Nordegg

Anna and I headed back out to the cottage on Friday July 30th.  We had the trailer in tow, and that big water tank perched on the trailer, so the drive was a little slower than usual.  The highways were busy with a lot of vehicles in advance of the August long weekend.

When we arrived at the cottage it was immediately obvious that the guest cottage next door is almost complete.  The walls are all framed up and the roof is on.  Some of the interior walls are done as well.

I designed the cottage myself, and it is very straight forward and simple.  The design was pretty loose and open and there have been some changes along the way.  The location of doors and windows has been fumbled around with several times.  Eventually I settled on a design that has the door facing our exisitng cottage.  It was pointed out to me that this is a little odd, and might affect resale value.  But, I don't plan on ever selling the place so it really doesn't matter to me.  I consider the second lot and the guest cottage to be part of the first lot, and to me it is one large 3 acre property with two buildings.

My contractor Scott also convinced me to increase the height of the exterior walls.  Originally I intended for them to be eight feet high.  I thought I would make the interior walls a little less than that, which would provide a little loft space above the bedrooms.  We ended up increasing the exterior walls to ten feet high, and left the interior bedrooms with a standard eight foot ceiling.  The loft space above the bedrooms is high enough that it can be used either for storage or extra sleeping space.  But now that I see it I realize that a railing will probably be in order.

Now that I am able to experience the structure in real life I am considering further changes.  I think I will eliminate the main floor utility room and move the furnace, hot water tank, and power panel down into the basement.  When I originally drew up the plans I expected that we would have a fairly compact crawl space.  But, once we excavated and determined the bedrock location and the lay of the land, we discovered that we have five to six feet of space down below.  Not really a true basement, but more than just a crawl space and adequate for utilities.  I'm now thinking that with the re-location of the main floor utility room I will be able to slightly increase the size of the bathroom, and have a little more space in the living room and kitchen.

Anna is really looking forward to the next few days at the cottage.  Her friend Raquel is going to be staying with her at our place through the week.  Raquel's family has a cottage a few doors down from ours and the two girls have been very close.  They spent the Friday night together, right after our arrival. On Saturday I took them into town for a while.  Once the weekend is done and the two girls will be left on their own and I will be their chauffeur and chaperone.