Dock Décor

Jasper the dog running on the dock to see me.

Our huge dock is only a couple of years old. The previous one was built the first year we had our cottage (1982) and truly reached an unsafe condition over the years. 

We need that dock as part of using an island cottage - it's where you park your boat and unload the contents and sometimes get in the water for a swim, but we really didn't look at it as part of our extended living space. 

Now is the time to change all that. It is a wonderful view, very sunny and we often feel a great breeze coming off the water. We still like to hang out on our not so great pontoon boat while it is moored at the dock, but I want us to enjoy being on the dock too. It is not a floating dock sticking out into the water: it is basically the same as a deck off a house would be, only this is following a shoreline and not the side of a building.

I would like a spot to just sit and read a book. I think we should have a place to eat lunch down there and I think we really need kind of a landing spot or bench for our stuff when we are coming and going. You know how you walk into your house and you have a closet or table to drop your sweater, and hat?  Well, the dock is our entrance to island life, and we need a spot to set down our hats, and lifejacket and travel bags and sometimes our swimming towels.

We took a bench that was onshore and has seen better days and moved it down on the dock. Bob sanded it down and is applying a couple layers of tung oil to protect the finish. We get a fair bit of rain and we can get pretty fierce winds with the occasional storm kicking waves onto the dock, so we have to take that into account with our choices for dock decor and for the functionality of the space.

We hauled out a few plants and pots to start with and to get them growing.  We just bought a couple sunflower plants from Home Depot at a sale price. It advertises that it will have new blooms all summer and into the fall.  I am not sure they will survive the heat and it is not like we are out there every day to give it water like it directs on the plant label but we thought it was the right price for a bigger plant and worth the shot. We planted them in some Styrofoam plant pots we already had added heavy big rock at the bottom and placed them on either side of the slope we use to go up to the cottage. Alicia got a hanging basket from Costco that seemed to manage the conditions by the water, but it was not heavy enough and was blowing over. We put the whole basket, as is, in a heavy metal pot that we had added a few rocks in the bottom to weight it down. 

Alicia's hanging basket, without the hanger.

The path up to the cottage between the sunflowers.

The new sunflower plants on the boat at the mainland dock

The other thing we have so far is a bar height table that can have an umbrella in the center and two green bar height chairs that we got last year at a charity garage sale. I really like them, but it is more of a spot for one or two people to sit and have a beverage than for our family to sit for a meal.  

We are going to see what chairs or tables we already own to continue making the dock more user friendly for this year!

By Our Mainland Dock

Our boat is the pontoon in the middle with a roof. 

Having a cottage on an island creates a few special considerations most cottagers don't deal with. One big one has been having a dock and parking space on the mainland as well as the dock at the cottage. Some cottage areas are set up for island transportation and have marinas and even boat shuttle services but we are in a community that is not huge and most people have cottages on the main shore of the lake. 

We have rented 4 different docks over the years and there have been different challenges with each one. Our very first one was a private cottage on the same bay as us. A friend of the real estate agent we used let us rent for the first year and then informed us that he needed the dock space for his own water vehicles and that was the beginning of the struggle of "what to do with the boat?". Next, we got a fantastic spot with an older couple just across the water from us. They were so wonderful and acted like an uncle and aunt to us and were lovely with our growing family. Eventually, the husband passed away and the wife was not able to take care of the cottage for very many more years after he was gone. The cottage was sold and the new people had no interest in renting.  We wound up with a long miserable period of having to take the boat in and out of the water each time and haul it home to the city with us.  

There are two resorts/ seasonal trailer parks at a reasonable distance from our island that we have used. Both have a very limited number of dock spots to rent and understandably give priority to the people who are also renting a trailer spot. For the most part, we have been happy where we are currently located. It has gone through several owners and the rules kind of change with each owner but the current owner is very business-like and we appreciate that. We rent the dock during the summer and get a place to leave our car while we are away. We have also arranged to leave the boat tarped and in their parking lot over the winter. Our current dock slip is located closest to the resort's little beach.

I thought I would share a few pictures from beside our dock last weekend.

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