Closing on a Cottage

The drive to see the cottage was exactly what you’d picture on a fall mountain drive. The leaves were changing and the slightest bit of wind sent them tumbling to the ground. The sky was clear and the air was crisp and the car was the warmth you needed against the wind.

Photo courtesy of High Country Lavender

After winding up a mountain, we turned down a gravel road across the street from a quaint lavender farm that had once been the site of a Christmas tree farm as the signs still stood. The single-lane gravel road had trees canopying overhead and ran alongside a quarry that had been used to build a highway and long since abandoned. The road slowly guided us down to another gravel road and we teetered around large oak trees and over stumps as we meandered down the little dirt road.

Once the road opened up, she was nestled into the rhododendron, and hugging the gravel road was the most adorable cottage. It sat proudly in the woods and overlooked a small mill pond.

The original listing photo and description.

“Rustic, pine paneled 1945 cottage with 3 bedrooms and 1 bath on 7.95 acres in Meadows of Dan. Cottage and shed/one car garage are located on .33 fenced acre. First level of the cottage consists of kitchen, dining and living area. The large living room offers a gas log stone fireplace, lots of windows and a game area with pool table that will convey. Three bedrooms and a bathroom are located upstairs. The additional 7.62 acres offers parking, large workshop with wood stove and is mostly wooded with road frontage on Rt. 58. Plenty of room for hiking and exploring. Cottage is accessed via entrance to Cockram Mill Complex which means conveniently located to local attractions but with private seclusion. Pond access from the rear of the private fenced yard.”

-Redfin Listing

The cabin was old. Then we were told it was built in 1945 yet it seemed older and all original. The roof, windows, siding, lighting, and paneling appeared to have never been touched. The house had obvious rot in spots, but for the price that included a decent chunk of land and two buildings with a pond view, we decided we’d figure it out and on October 31, 2021, we put in an offer.

Within almost two days our offer was accepted and we then had the hard part of waiting out winter and everything the universe threw at us until we were finally able to close 6 months later.

It took 6 months of negotiating and waiting. Winter came and the house was impossible to access. A storm that was described as “like nothing they’d seen before” made it impossible for the people in the community to leave their homes, let alone make it to the cottage for inspections. After the snow and ice melted, we ran into more issues with the septic, the property lines and convincing the homeowner we had no use for his personal belongings or furniture inside. We finally closed in March of 2022.

The roof and siding were all original. The electrical had been updated sporadically from the original knob and tube although not to the level of safety we preferred.

Once the keys were ours we set to work rearranging the space and updating. The cottage, although perfect for the time lacked many modern day necessities like a proper kitchen, updated electrical and a downstairs bathroom.

Cheerfully Oblivious

Prior to pouring our lifesavings into restoring her.

Luckily, the two extra buildings on the property were powered and had concrete floors recently added. At the time, we didn’t have big plans for these spaces, but they would serve as storage for the construction phase.

I hope to share more about her history, our construction, and everything we’ve discovered since we purchased the cottage on this page. I hope you’ll follow along.