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Long Break, Getting Back On Track

OldSaw

The wife's investment
I haven’t been around much since last summer. As I have been wont to do around here these past 15 years, I occasionally take a several month break from B&B and then reappear as though I never left. Well this time I have lifelong dream come true news.

Mrs. OldSaw and I have had a summer home in northern Wisconsin for many years. Most of that time it was a fairly old and rundown mobile home on a back road near a lake that we had access to through my brother. We longed to have our own lakefront property but it was always just out of reach or needed so much work that it just wasn’t worth it.

A few years ago we were at the point of removing the mobile home and building on that lot and found several suitable plans. During that time we also found two properties on a neighboring lake and put in offers. The seller got a little persnickety when we asked for a septic inspection. With renewed hope of finding an affordable lake home we began our search again. We met with roadblocks and missed opportunities. Finally, in the middle of negotiations with the difficult seller, I said, “Let me try “Dan” one more time.

Dan had a ramshackle old cabin on the lake just three doors down from my brother and across the road from my parent’s. Besides being closer to my family (brother, parents, an aunt, an uncle, brother-in-law, and cousin) it was a much nicer lake than the other one. I had first planted the seeds to buy Dan’s place over 30 years ago. I’d occasionally remind him that I was still interested when I’d see him on his annual visit. Of course, I wasn’t the only one interested. He had neighbors on either side who wanted pieces of his three parcel tiny estate (one small lake lot with tiny cabin and two vacant wooded lots across the road, which allowed for a conventional septic system). Did I mention that one of those lots connected to our original mobile home lot?

Dan’s place.
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Anyway, Dan still has a landline and in order to reach him you have to call and leave a message on his answering machine and if he feels like returning your call he will, eventually. So I called him and explained the situation and that we were still interested in his place, but we had to make a decision soon because we were in negotiations and of course if that fell through and we built on our backlot, then we wouldn’t be able to afford his place Later.

As good fortune would have it, when Dan called back a week later he said, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about selling it, but I have to run it by my grandson first.” Oh joy of joy!!! There was a glimmer of hope. This was the first time in over thirty years that he ever said he might sell. But that grandson in the wings could snap it up and we would be out of luck. So now we play the waiting game and while that was going on the difficult seller on the other lake went completely goofy with weird stipulations about boat launch easements, a shared well, and still no dice on the septic inspection.

So finally Dan called me and said his grandson is no longer interested and he would sell to me. Then out of the blue one of the neighbors starts asking my dad what’s going on with Dan. When will he be here? What are his plans? So now I’m really getting worried and tried to pin down a deal without tipping off the neighbors. Dan agreed on a ballpark price but said it was too late in the season to move out and wanted to wait until spring. It was a long winter and at the first sign of spring I left him another message and we finally met at the property and my wife was able to see inside for the first time.

It had some nice features in the living room.
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But the bathroom was hideous and the kitchen wasn’t much better.
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After looking it over, Mrs. OldSaw agreed that we should buy it and then the other shoe fell... he had a granddaughter who had to sign off but we at least had a fair and agreeable price locked in that wasn’t too far off from our original ballpark figure. So again we waited on needles and pins. After a week or two Dan called me and said it’s yours. Of course, there was all the paperwork and legalities to take care of but I remember Dan saying, “Don’t worry, Dennis. It’s yours. This is really happening. I’m a man of my word.”

Finally, after nearly a year we had our little lake cottage. It was small and cramped and built on a damp cement slab with little opportunity for improvement, but it was ours AND it was on the lake, yay. Soon we realized that things were a bit too crowded when our three children and their spouses visited. So we discussed remodeling with a builder friend and a basement with a concrete friend. They both advised us to tear it down and build new from scratch with a walkout basement. Of course, this wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But after much consideration we sold our house in the city in one weekend last summer and hired a builder.

This is what he built, as seen from the lake.
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And from the road.
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And from the living room.
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This all took considerable time and with health restrictions, etc. we couldn’t just move in to my aged parent’s basement across the road during the build. So we rented my brother-in-law’s cottage just a few doors down from my parent’s. Thinking that we would be moved in to the new house by Christmas I figured his little three season place would suffice and we could stay on top of the building project.

Wow! It’s getting late. I’m going to have to continue this in additional posts. But suffice it to say, my shave gear has been resurrected from the depths of storage and new pots and pans are on order for the induction cooktop. More to come. Thanks for reading.
 
Congratulations!!
I really don’t know what else to say.

Well, I do!

First, that written narrative outlining the lead up to your final acquisition of your dream property reads like a plot summary for a "Perry Mason" episode, OldSaw! The only thing missing was the murder!

Second, congratulations! It's really nice when "things" work out for you in life. This comes from one "Sconnie" boy to another. My sister and brother in law have their retirement cabin up in the Wisconsin northwoods, too.
 

OldSaw

The wife's investment
From a fellow Wisconsinite, enjoy your place up nort!

Looks like a beautiful place!
Ain’t up nort until you’re north of 64. At least that’s what I was always told. Some people say north of 8. Well, I’m only a few short miles from highway 8, so it’s north enough for me.

But really, once you get out of the cities there’s not hardly a bad place in Wisconsin. I just drove from Iowa (Dubuque/Hazel Green crossing) to Crandon, WI. There’s some pretty awesome scenery in Iowa county, Dodgeville area. Drove past Taliesin and The House on the Rock. I love Wisconsin and it would be even better if Lake Michigan wrapped underneath and over Illinois.
 
Ain’t up nort until you’re north of 64. At least that’s what I was always told. Some people say north of 8. Well, I’m only a few short miles from highway 8, so it’s north enough for me.

But really, once you get out of the cities there’s not hardly a bad place in Wisconsin. I just drove from Iowa (Dubuque/Hazel Green crossing) to Crandon, WI. There’s some pretty awesome scenery in Iowa county, Dodgeville area. Drove past Taliesin and The House on the Rock. I love Wisconsin and it would be even better if Lake Michigan wrapped underneath and over Illinois.

Crandon! That's where my family's land is. Kind of the same situation as yours where all my aunts, uncles and cousins are all within walking distance of each other. My grandpa originally bought 20 acres up there in the 60's and most of it is still in the family today.

I agree, it doesn't feel like up nort until north of 64, and north of 8 is pretty too. I like to think of Crandon as almost perfect, far enough north of Lakewood area and far enough south of three lakes/eagle river, so you avoid some of the tourist traffic.
 
I missed this thread when it was posted.....but wowsers!

You are living my dream retirement. Beautiful house with my wife, family visiting and on a lake. Especially if the lake is canoe/kayak/fishing friendly.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
Is it drinkable with all the salt in it?
You know how long winded I am......

I've lived in this house since the stork dropped me off, and the original well was a hand driven well about 1.5 inches in diameter, and about 110 ft. deep. It worked from 1958 to until around 1990 or a few years later at the most. The water was very high in iron content. But not salty AT ALL. Delicious taste, artesian tasting. The pump sat in the crawlspace, I believe it's called a jet pump. Very expensive compared to a submersible pump. It was deep enough that it was in bedrock.

When it finally failed it was PROBABLY because the foot valve at the bottom failed. The well driller said for half the price of a new well he'd try to fix it. So the smart and lovely WD (War Department) and I opted for a new well. The housing is that white plastic (ABS?) and is 5" in diameter. It is 67 ft deep, as I recall, and in a sand vein. So the last ten feet of the pipe is (I think) 7/1000 inches of slots. The well driller had a machine that did it at his house. So I didn't have to worry about any leather filter getting clogged like in the old days.

My neighbor has a 197 (!) ft deep well and has SALT water. I didn't want that! My driller told me I would not have salt, but it could be hard. I didn't care.

It ended up being pretty soft, and sweet. Then it did, after about 5? years start getting harder. AND harder. More later my friend!
(To be continued....)
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
Sorry, kinda! I don't think you really needed to know all the back story, but I wanted to make sure you had as much data as possible.

My wife and I had a very smooth talking gent stop by and set up an appointment for a "free" water test.

Oh course the salesman was as smooth as the appointment setter, lol, so long story short, we had a system installed. They threw in a REALLY top of the line whole house air purifier thing and 5 years of concentrated shampoo, dish soap, body shampoo, household cleaner.... I have to order it every year. We've just ordered our third year. They give you these bottles, you pour the soap in, and then add water and shake. Actually very nice stuff, and as a former professional hair washer I know junk from good stuff.

AND they also put a reverse osmosis system in for drinking water that is hooked up at the kitchen sink, with a filter unit under the sink. Tastes like bottled water to me, which isn't a ringing endorsement, as I like the taste of well water.

The regular water that is just softened tastes real close to my old untreated well water. NO SALTINESS. My washer, the sinks, the tubs, the shower....etc, all stuff is no longer stained orange. Clothes (especially whites) appear cleaner. My lovely WD just told me it was $5400 installed. I'd do it again. If I were younger, healthier, and more ambitious I'd probably put it in myself if I could save $3000 or so. BUT: I have a crawlspace, probably 3ft from the dirt to the bottom of my floor. Spiders, etc. If I had a basement I'd tackle the job myself, POSSIBLY even in my present physical condition. Wish I'd done it years ago now.

ADDED BONUS MATERIAL: My in-laws place had terribly sulfurous water. Rotten egg smell. When I married into the family dad had a system that really only softened the water; DID NOT remove the sulfur. Taking a shower there or drinking the water would like to kill me. Maybe 10ish years later he had his original Culligan water softener replaced with a system by the same-ish company that I ended up going with, and also had a reverse osmosis system put in. HIS osmosis system DEFINITELY tastes "flat", like "not the best bottled water" you can buy, but MUCH improved over sulfur water served in h-e- double toothpicks. Ok, I know there is no water in h-e- double toothpicks, I was speakin' metaphorically for you dyed in the wool stiff-necked types!

Hope that helped.
 

OldSaw

The wife's investment
Is it drinkable with all the salt in it?
There is no salt in it. Water softeners use an ion exchange medium. When the medium absorbs as many hard water ions as it can hold the softener regenerates by closing one valve and opening another so the salt can do another ion exchange which resets the softening medium. The resulting brine is washed down the drain before the valves return to normal, thereby keeping the salt out of the drinking water.
 

OkieStubble

Dirty Donuts are so Good.
There is no salt in it. Water softeners use an ion exchange medium. When the medium absorbs as many hard water ions as it can hold the softener regenerates by closing one valve and opening another so the salt can do another ion exchange which resets the softening medium. The resulting brine is washed down the drain before the valves return to normal, thereby keeping the salt out of the drinking water.

I don't think I grasped this explanation, but it definitely sounds interesting. :)
 

OldSaw

The wife's investment
I don't think I grasped this explanation, but it definitely sounds interesting. :)
You could probably google it and get a much more detailed and scientific explanation than I can give. I just know that it works.
 

OkieStubble

Dirty Donuts are so Good.
You could probably google it and get a much more detailed and scientific explanation than I can give. I just know that it works.

I thought your explanation seemed quite scientific. The big words you used got me discombobulated. But you're right, I can hopefully look on Google and find it drawn out in crayon for me or something. :)
 
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