Category Archives: client activities

client activities, cottage life, Lake Joseph, Lake Muskoka, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka cottage life, owning a cottage, Pine Lake

In Muskoka, better late than never; skating rink on the lake.

18 March 2013 cottageinmuskoka

Most are anticipating spring now, but it seems to still be about a week away before any sort of warmup. Some folks though, are having way too much fun, still enjoying beautiful winter weather.

We were out yesterday, delivering Cottage Life Show tickets to some of our clients (now all friends actually) along with Catharine’s “Welcome Spring” cookies – this year they’re canoe and paddles.

Among others, we found two by the fire on Pine Lake, two about to go snowshoeing on Lake Muskoka, two just getting back to Lake Joseph from lunch, and … two clearing the snow for a skating rink. That’s right, just days from when the fish huts have to be off Muskoka lakes because of ice break-up, they were making a rink! And having a wonderful time doing it!

There’s nothing quite like skating on the lake, at the cottage. Heading inside to relax by the fire afterward is pretty good too.

In 2003, there was virtually no snow in Muskoka until about a week into January. It was quite cold though, so I had a chance to enjoy a very large rink – really cool!

Winter 2003. Took up long distance skate training.

These sort of conditions don’t occur very often, so lake rinks are more a product of dedication and some degree of work(fun). If you want to get started right away, or want to file this away until December-ish 2013, here’s some good, mostly Muskoka stuff:
From Huntsville, someone really into rinks.
Some rink and safety info from a Muskoka cottage products web-retailer.
Keeping the rink smooth from Cottage Life magazine.
And one of many home grown methods to improvise a bodger Zamboni for the ultimate surface.

client activities, cottage life, Invasive Species, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Lakes, Muskoka Watershed Council, owning a cottage, Stewardship, Volunteer, water

Signs of spring, or the health of your lake. What are you watching?

5 March 2013 cottageinmuskoka

Many years ago my Grandmother won a contest with Toronto radio station CKEY (now long gone). I think you had to write in, and the best story about signs of spring won. The prize was a ride in the radio station’s traffic helicopter during a weekday rush hour. Grannie’s story was something about the pussy willows growing up right out of the snow in front of the Sundial restaurant on the way up to Muskoka (also long gone). Anyway, she gave me the helicopter ride – that was cool!!!

Whether: “is the ice-out”, other signs of spring, habits of wildlife or indicators of a healthy lake, we are often asked about key things cottagers need to know – or go by, and we are happy to help!
But here’s an opportunity to get all the scoops on what to look for: plan to attend the Muskoka Stewardship Conference, put on by the Muskoka Watershed Council. This conference is titled What Are You Watching?

Planned, are talks on algae (identification and monitoring), loon surveying, water quality, landscaping for wildlife, NatureWatch programs and more. There’s even the opportunity to join naturalist Al Sinclair on an outdoor birdwatching session before the talks begin.

Taking place at Nipissing University in Bracebridge, the whole day is only $30 and includes lunch. Register, and get more info here.

building a cottage, Buying a cottage, client activities, cottage life, home for sale, Listing, Muldrew Lake, property

Muldrew Lake Cottage Update

9 October 2012 cottageinmuskoka

We are happy to say that there will be a new family on Muldrew Lake. Particularly exciting to us is that this family is new to Canada, has never cottaged before, but really want to live a “classic Canadian lifestyle,” and they decided, what better way than to cottage in Muskoka.

More details on their beautiful property here.

Catharine is always happy to add the SOLD sticker. Bentley sneaked in to the photo.

client activities, cottage for sale, Muskoka Activities, Uncategorized

Spotted in a Muskoka Cottage: Bonnet Chest

4 October 2012 cottageinmuskoka 4 Comments

I’m sure the Bonnet Chest isn’t only a Canadian phenomenon. But, if you Google it, you will get lots of Canadian, and only a few US links. Even Wikipedia doesn’t know about them; searching for bonnet chest there will get you nothing. They are not mentioned in the otherwise excellent: The Heritage of Upper Canadian Furniture by Howard Pain. It seems that they may have been a Mennonite piece designed, of course, to protect bonnets. The design made its way into Canada from Pennsylvania and seemed to have become more popular here.

I have always liked their shape. Especially the ones with the upper section projecting out a few inches (chest on chest), highlighting the oversize drawers; makes me want to pull one open and look inside. There’s just something about the lines and the substantial size. So, a bonnet chest has been on my list of things to make for a long time. Recently I saw a fairly good example of what was once a lovely chestnut piece at a cottage we sold. Unfortunately our seller was keeping it, and it moved away.

Now recently, in that case, was more than two years ago. I went out the same week and bought some 4/4 curly maple. It took a couple of weeks a bit at a time to process the rough sawn wood into useable boards. But, it took over a year to build it. Not just because furniture making is done in my spare time. It’s because I was designing my bonnet chest based on ones I liked, while looking at pieces for sale on the local Kijiji and Craigslist.
And while looking, I saw one that I had to buy in Beeton. Over the years it had been pretty much reduced to a pile of water-stained boards, it was 90% apart, had had some type of birds (chickens maybe) living in the lower drawers and all the upper drawers and backsplash were gone – years ago and nobody knew where. But, it was only a hundred bucks or so, what was left was all made of butternut, and the money went to support Beeton hockey so I bought the pile of parts, headed to a sawmill and bought some rough-sawn butternut to replace the missing pieces and took it all home.
It was winter so we weren’t too busy with cottages and within a week or so it was done.
I feel great about saving this one; it could go on for another century or more, rather than rotting away.

We are VERY busy in the summer, and pretty busy the rest of the year, so I got back to the new chest only from time to time. I am fairly slow with carcass pieces to begin with. In addition to turning some 8/4 maple on the lathe for the legs, which took some time to get around to, I knew I wanted to hand-cut dovetails, front and back in all the drawers. This turned out to be 100 dovetails in all, which makes the piece cool in the builders mind, but added a couple of months to the project in “eked out” time.

Anyway, the bonnet chest is complete now, just as the summer is drawing to a close. We don’t have any bonnets, so we keep dog-leashes in one of the bonnet drawers of the old one, and not much at all yet in the new one.

My take on the Bonnet Chest, in curly maple

client activities, cottage life, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Watershed Council, water

Muskoka Moments starts with a winner!

20 September 2012 cottageinmuskoka

I posted a few videos today. One is the 1st of a Muskoka Moments collection.

The idea of Muskoka Moments is to show people and places in Muskoka, but more importantly, to try to show the connection between the two.

Our first video Backyard Swamp, Bracebridge, is a perfect example to lead off. The star of the video, shows off his knowledge of the natural world around him and his excellent backyard! The video was created by a newbie to Final Cut Pro -nice work!

If anyone has a 1 or 2 minute video (or aspires to shoot some) that shows the connection between people and our beautiful environment here in Muskoka, let me know.

We can even do the editing for you!

client activities, cottage for sale, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Properties, selling a cottage

Go for the painted version – sell your cottage fast, and it may help with those typos too.

2 August 2012 cottageinmuskoka

Perhaps because Muskoka experienced more cottage sales in March, April and May 2012 than 2011, more cottages were listed, building something of a buyer’s market here.

Monthly Sales 3 Years (Muskoka Haliburton Association of Realtors)

Although the best way to sell a cottage quickly is to properly price it, there are additional things that can help: improve its condition, de-clutter, keep up with the maintenance, add staging and of course, market it well. There’s one more, ahem … “proven” … tactic that I didn’t know until we were sent a photo from a client of ours.

You can call on some divine intervention for help, but apparently “you have to believe.” As a seller you need to bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in the front lawn. Some detail on this at snopes.com.

Wow! In looking into this it’s unbelievable, at least to me, there’s even a st-josephstatue.com where you can buy a St Joseph Home Selling Kit, AND they’re all on sale at the moment – at either a “discount price” or a “super discount price” – how lucky is that?!

St Joseph Home Selling Kit (“nice” version)

A quote from the $9.47 unpainted statue description: “This product is a litle(sic) cheaper than the painted version, but always remember that the help from St Joseph has only to do with your faith in the saint, not what type of items you choose.” Ok, so good for them; there’s little in the way of hard pressure for the up-sell.

St. Joseph may not be the patron saint of spelling – or web typos – but hey, if you spend $3.00 more for the “nice painted statue” at a “super discount price,” it can’t hurt – right?

Buying a cottage, client activities, cottage life, Lake Rosseau, Muskoka Activities, Muskoka Properties

Lake Rosseau “escape”

20 July 2012 cottageinmuskoka

We had another cottage closing for great people who, if you knew how much helping people is the essence of their “career life,” you’d really know that only Muskoka can truly offer them the serenity for the “escape” they’ve earned.

The request: was to look like Muskoka, need no renovation, be level, be peaceful, be private and be a good deal. We found them all this on Lake Rosseau!

Buying a cottage, client activities, cottage life, Lake Joseph, Muskoka Properties, selling a cottage

New neighbours on Lake Joseph

29 June 2012 cottageinmuskoka 1 Comment

After a fair bit of searching, previews, showings, negotiations, re-started negotiations and then working on and waiting for the close – we can happily announce our new ~~clients~~ friends are in their beautiful Lake Jo cottage!

They have made the quantum leap from a water-access-only cottage to, well … have a look at the pictures below. The property is gorgeous, the build, absolutely superb and we know they have the touch to make the interior design, true cottage elegance.

We are thrilled to have played a role in what we know will be a wonderful cottage life for the family now, and hopefully for generations to come. Congratulations!

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