Cottage Life

There seems to be a trend towards escaping the city for a slower pace of life during the summer.  Some escape to campgrounds all over BC, which was my summer fun growing up.  Days spent swimming and riding bikes, and evenings spent by the camp fire roasting marshmellows.   Others are fortunate enough to spend some time at summer house.  Either rented or owned.  If you own a summer home, its amazing for your kids to have a home away from home where they can grow up yearly and create life long memories there.  On the other hand, some choose to take that money and visit different places.  Exploring the world around us, and creating amazing memories that way.

My husband's family has a summer home on a small island on the sunshine coast.  There are no roads, stores or distractions.  My kids get my full attention.   One of my favorite parts is exploring the sea life.  We have watched snakes swallow fish whole, fish give birth, barnacles, oysters, clams and starfish come to life in our salt water fish tank that hold all our findings.  We've caught eels, rock lobsters, octopus, and of course lots of crabs!!!  Since getting to a store is quite a chore, we plan our meals carefully and bring what we need.  Then we catch crab, and get creative with our menu.  I often take time to make extra special meals, 'cause, well I have the time.  Here are some of the fun things we create in the kitchen:








And speaking of the kitchen, here is the renovation we completed on the kitchen of the cottage a couple of years ago.  One of my favorite renos of all time: (do I always say that?)

This is the before picture:



This is the after picture:  As you can see we removed the hallway and changed the entrance to the bathroom.



Here is the drastic transformation of the family room:

Before:



AFTER:



This year we completed the upstairs:

BEFORE:








AFTER:









All the trim and doors were replaced upstairs.  (It used to be dark brown plastic - yuck)  And the carpet upstairs was also replaced.

Where ever you spent the lazy of days of summer I hope you and your family created amazing memories, and had a wonderful summer.  Here is a few instagram pics of our summer.  If you want to follow me on instagram search the username: grapevine_designs.





This is the very large, very ugly octopus we caught in our crab trap.  He is pictured here swimming free!



These are Eli's snakes that he caught (with the help of his island snake catching posse).  One of the snakes gave birth!

Furry Finnigan cooling his belly on the rocks





Island boys and captain Eston