The Lake House: It Took Quite the Village

This is now our home.

When we first saw this piece of land 10 years ago, a simple walk from the overgrown tire tracks where we had to park the car down to the lake's edge was a graceless 450 foot stumble guaranteed to mark you with tearing branches and thorns that eagerly scratched flesh, snagged sweaters, twisted ankles, and left the unwary (me) with the sense that they were the most awkward human ever born. With the slope climbing near straight up from the edge of a lake you couldn't see from 20 feet away within the brush; the ground uneven, choked with mostly green growing things we hadn't begun to identify; boulders taller than multiples of me; trees stretching 150 feet and more into the air, some of their siblings rotting on the ground, fruit for new life but tripwires and barricades against what we had in mind, the prospect of building a house here was as daunting as it was exciting.

But now this is home.

Where mornings can be like this;

or this.

And gauzy layers of fog or cloud carve Baldy Ridge and Mount Storm King into whole new mountains, sometimes by the minute, their light and shadow massaging the lake into different worlds.

Or colors that don't seem possible appear while your head is in a book, reading some paragraph you thought was beautiful until you looked up, and there was the unimaginable, beauty I couldn't possibly describe. .

Where Shar's dream of an inside fully embracing a waterfront outside finally came together;

and those beams of my last post finally have their time;

and what had been a hazy vision has become a home.

Where Kelly and Conor joined us for Thanksgiving to tell us that they are bringing our first grandchild into the world. And the lake gave us the back drop for our Christmas card this year (should this look familiar.)

Where Kat, Forced by COVID to go home to Mom and Dad's for her first year of law school, broke in the room upstairs by studying for 10 hours a day. [The view's nothing to spit at but we're not sure she can ever face going up there again.]

Where Shar finally settled into that chair by that window with that dog and that lake;

Where Boo refined his beg; at an appropriate distance, as you can see;

And I've proven, yet again, that just because the books are on the shelves doesn't mean that the study isn't a mess.

---

So, Home it is. But for us to be here, as we are so happy to be, we had to get from driveways and retaining walls, foundations, framed walls, and beams, the subjects of the first four Lake House posts, to everything else. And while, as with all of these posts, this is a continuing tribute to James Schouten's Mill Creek, and carpenters extraordinaire, Jim Lawrence, Chad Smith, and Tom Timm, there were so many others doing so much. I can't list them all but hope that any mention of any of the trades will serve in some small way as an appreciative nod in everyone's direction.

SO HERE WE GO...

This pic of a bunch of trucks and trailers and vans is a good a place as any to start. Because, on any given day the number of skilled tradesmen who were lined up to do everything that had to be done was astonishing. They dodged and complimented one another, I'm sure they cussed that damn steep driveway, maybe even us, and smiled toward the lake. But mostly, they worked, to give us this house.

---

SEPTIC

It seemed as if the Eden Excavating crew were never going to get a break from us. They constructed the septic system after cutting the trees, digging out the driveway and pad for the house, building those crazy walls, putting in the big old French drain, and on and on. At some point I just stopped counting the number of big aspects of our project we owe to them. Amazing!

---

ELECTRICAL

Here's Ben, in the plaid, and Joel, wrestling with the light. This is no where near enough record of what these two, and the others at Black Diamond, did to make the lights go on and a million things run. They were there from the beginning and there at the end, hooking up the power when the house was just a bunch of scratching in the dirt, and connecting up the last of Shar's beautiful lamp choices, not to mention the changes and the minor fixes and reconfigures. Incredible work and very fine people.

---

HVAC, INSULATION, DRYWALL

The things that go in behind those walls... and the work getting the stuff there and covered up so you never see it is so hard that it's amazing everyone was so wonderful to work with, answering every dumb question I asked and at least pretending to not mind. The pride in their work, about which we remarked over and over, with every trade and every skill set, was simply a joy to experience.

---

THE PATIOS

I still don't understand how the folks doing these stamped concrete patios can make them turn out the way they do. I have even more difficulty believing it having watched some of it. The pure volume of material, the precision of the designs and finishes; yet another thing to amaze.

---

MUDDING AND TEXTURING THE WALLS

I know damn well that I don't have the physical capacity to work for hours on stilts, or with my neck cranked back at impossible angles for impossible hours. And if I could, there is no way the product of what I was trying to do would match these beautifully textured walls. Like everyone else, hats off to these guys. And they were great to be around.

---

PLUMBING

There's Todd Witherell. Pipe Rite Plumbing is his company. I think of Todd's work at our place as having to wrestle an octopus; these water pipes and propane lines running in every direction. He and Schouten even had to to try to solve the mystery of the singing outdoor fire place. Not quite a Sherlock Holmes tale but plenty perplexing, and solved as well as it can be. Another skilled, thoughtful, helpful tradesman we're happy to know.

---

CABINETS, BOOK CASES, AND FLOORS

The work done by the crew at Bleimeister's Wood Works, putting together the cabinetry for this house, David designing it with Shar, the shop (loved seeing it) building these gorgeous pieces of furniture, and installing what they'd built with precision...really met our every expectation. We are thankful for their craftsmanship every hour of every day. And the man who did the floors, who James found after the suppliers backed out at the last minute, was great. He lives a little way away so for several days he just camped out on the patio, spending nights where we now spend them well before we ever got the chance. And what a solid, beautiful job.

---

ROOFING AND GUTTERS

I 'chased hail storms,' as we used to call it, roofing houses all over eastern Colorado and Wyoming before and during college, so I have a soft spot for roofers and the work they do. I'm also very happy that I wasn't in that game as I got older. It is hard work, dangerous at times, physically demanding, and generally not appreciated by other tradesmen, such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers and the like. Not because it is not important but some consider it a more labor intensive trade than a skill intensive trade. I ain't getting into that debate, but I'm very happy that we had obviously very good roofers and gutter techs. This was a large, difficult, complex job. And, as an aside, I'm pretty sure nobody, no matter their skill at other tasks, wants their roof to leak. And it takes skill and acumen to make sure that doesn't happen. Thanks guys.

---

STONE AND TILE

The tales of the stone fireplaces, the outdoor columns, and the tile. Ahh, they could fill a book. But this won't be that book. Very simply, Abraham, below in the yellow shirt, is a young, talented, hard working fishing tile guy with a 60 year old's taste in country music. I hope he knows that a compliment. Jason, below laying the heating element for the master bath and working with shower floor stone, is an seasoned, determined pro. We appreciated them both.The mason, whose name I don't know, was simply fantastic. He's worked with Mill Creek a bunch and we understand why. Not only did he simply do excellent work, but when late changes and consequent late arrival of stone for inside the house jammed our move-in date, he went out of his way to make sure we got in as quickly as possible. And we are so happy with the job he did.

---

AND THEN THERE WERE THE PAINTERS

It seems as if the painters were never going to be able to stop working, there was just so much for Ben and the crew to do. Ben was often at the house at night when we went by to look around or have a fire at the lake, spraying some room he'd sealed off or finishing something. The crew was fun, curious, and hard working. These guys painted the walls, the ceilings, the doors (so many doors) the inside, the outside. They stained the beams, inside and out. They stained the bench Jimmy and Chad built out our Doug Fir. They taped and covered, sealed and cleaned. They only things they didn't paint were Shar, me, and that crazy snail I found crawling up the Hardie board before they painted it. They had to run up and down that crazy driveway so many times that Vlad brought his home made go-cart and puttered up and down. Ben and his wife had a baby just as they were finishing up but, of course, that didn't stop him from seeing that the job got done.

There were more, fire place guys, delivery of all sorts of crazy heavy stuff guys, propane folks, inspectors of every stripe, all of whom helped give us this place. We're grateful. And if there are names you'd like me to add, just say the word.

Thank you.