Water Baby

The reason for the house addition became quite obvious several months after I began. I did not know it at the time but apparently, I was nesting.
Take a look at what my newly added sewing studio loft turned out to be. Some kind of nursery.... the little water-baby never slept there but it was nice to have room for his stuff.

I don't have many after pictures of the inside of the boathouse and those I do have include a picture of the baby as well. This is the food prep/baby bathing area... The ladder leads to the loft above. One side was the baby's room and the other was the sleeping loft. Notice the upper walls/ceiling are unbleached cotton muslin sewn together and stapled to the rafters. This was done to keep the total weight down. No heavy drywall here. Probably not up to the standard building code, especially with the wood stove, but code? what code?



















Here is the boy looking out the back window. Soon the time came to move to dry land. I worried about the baby starting to walk and I wanted him to have a safe outside play area. So two years after adding the addition I sold the boathouse and bought a house in town.
The time living on the river was magical. The cheap cost of living made it possible for me to spend more time at home with my baby. He survived. He did not fall in the river as many people warned me he would. And he did not get his head caught in that accordian style baby gate!! Can you guess what his first word was?? "da"- for DUCK



















NOTICE: Objects in the viewfinder are closer than they appear.

An Artist's Rendition

When the loft addition to the boathouse was finished, I commissioned a local artist to do a painting of it.


It was a real stretch to come up with the money to pay for it but I have never regretted it.

Before....

The Island

A local free paper ran an article about the boathouse community and I thought I would include a bit here: The article is not by-lined so I do not know who to credit it to... excerpt from the Monthly Journal of Mutual-Aid July 2008 ( but the pictures are mine)



"A closer look at the island, perhaps from the top of the Wagon Bridge, will reveal dozens of unusual homes floating along its northern shore. These are not merely boat garages, used for storage and weekend recreation, but homes to a "hearty" breed....To some they constitute a counter culture or a novel throwback to the 60s. Others consider them outlaws and a nuisance.














Many choose not to have a car, most have no electricity, phone, or plumbing. They haul out what they haul in, and they are always hauling. They cope with nature's wild mood swings with firewood and ropes. A handful of times a year, they can only get home by canoe or wading through frigid water..














...And while life on the river seemed quaint and serene, the residents were toughening up with the endless chores of hauling wood, water, and waste. There was always a day-to-day grind enhanced by freezing and flooding, and each resident found that the simple life was a grueling as it was rewarding. It was not easy."

Its me!!! An unidentified woman!!