A grainery with Windows.

We were lucky I guess because there was a cabin of sorts on the land when we bought it. Bernie calls it a grainery with windows but it never was a grainery and someone at one time did stay in it. It's only one room and I think about 16 feet by 20 feet. There where a couple kitchen cupboards, a counter and a kitchen sink. No water to the taps of course and the drain was straight into a bucket under the sink. I was very excited to see an old wood cook stove in the cabin as well. Heat and a place to cook, what else did I need?

Bernie got out some tools and built me some shelves so we had a place to put all the important things, like the bottle of Lemon Hart and some bug spray. He got some pipe and redirected the sink drain through the floor and under the cabin. We raided the old barn back at the farm and found a hide-a-bed. I wasn't really thrilled with the evidence that the last users had left behind but I cleaned it as best I could and hoped that they had all moved out during the 4 hour trip north. We also found a chrome table and chairs in a shed that belonged to his Grandma Rist so we brought that
along too.

I got a lesson on electricity and wired in a bunch of plug ins and light switches. Before there was one hole in the wall where someone pushed an extension cord through and plugged it into the electric panel box out on the transformer.

The most important thing we did right away was extend the little front porch and enclose it with some screen. A Bug Proof Room!! Well almost bug proof, a lot of them little suckers hitchhike in with the dog. But during the worst bug time it is the most used room in the place. Ok, I only have one other room but still we use that screen room a lot.

We have now moved the old cook stove out, it had a badly cracked firebox so on cold nights we were putting wood in every 15 minutes just to keep the frost off our noses. Bernie's #1 son had an accident with his wood stove, something about the stove being to small for the logs he was putting in and the log going through the glass door. Anyway, I pulled all the broken glass out of the door and Bernie put a piece of tin over the hole. It works wonderful. I can't cook on it like the old cook stove but it will heat a kettle of water for washing just fine.

I also found a real bed so we no longer have to sleep with our heads lower than our legs and that hard bar across our backs. Why can't someone come up with a better design for a hide-a-bed?

An old fridge and a small freezer have also found their way into the cabin so it really is getting comfy. We even put down some carpet that my #1 daughter took out when she moved into her new shop.

There is now a very long garden hose running from the well we had dug last fall to my kitchen tap and a second deck outside that has the smoker, a barbecue and the coleman stove. I call that my summer kitchen.

All the comforts of home, well maybe not, but enough for Bernie and me.