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Showing posts from September, 2025

Day One: The Excavator, the Mayor, and the Granite Beast

Blodgett Landing wasn’t exactly designed for heavy machinery. The cottages here sit on tiny slivers of land that once held tents. Think adult dorm space, except you get your own front door and there are fewer keg parties.  Lakefront strip of cottages in Blodgett Landing Anticipation was sky-high when our builder rolled in today. Picture this: a huge truck pulling a trailer with an excavator creeping down a one-way road the size of a driveway. Cue the entrance of our unofficial “mayor” of Blodgett Landing. Captain Kara saved the day by offering her driveway so the crew could back the behemoth down between the houses. Without her, that excavator might still be stuck on Middle Street. This was also the moment hubby and I realized we’d been wildly optimistic about just how much space we had to work with. Spoiler: not much. At the southern back corner of our lot, we negotiated with our back neighbors for permission to cross a sliver of their land. The crew eased the excava...

Ground Zero: Groundbreaking, Porch-Mangling, and Other Casualties

      Windsor Cottage in 1893   Windsor Cottage 1985   Windsor Cottage 2004 and as it appears today Welcome! Not sure how much we’ll learn along the way, but I thought it might be nice to chronicle this ten-month remodel adventure. We love our little lake cottage in Blodgett Landing—the tiniest census area in New Hampshire, which makes us feel very fancy, like we live in a three-road hamlet. Pine needles dust the streets, sunsets are gorgeous, our dock doubles as a Michelin-star restaurant (if you bring your own food and vino), and our old boat still chugs along each summer like it’s stuck in a 1980s family movie. The neighbors? A fabulous mix—diverse for New England (though let’s be real, this isn’t Miami or Berkeley). Still, it’s a patchwork of personalities, values, and quirks. Mostly they’re kind, warm, and helpful—which is lucky, because the climate here is not. Winters bite, summers bake, spring is basically a swamp, and autumn turns our quiet ...