A small box on a tall hill
We had always looked at these get-aways, small shacks on large plots of land, a place to sneak to and avoid the bustle of the city. With everything that had gone on in the last couple of years, it was a long-shot offer and with our luck we had decided it probably wouldn’t actually happen. Well it did and now we are stewards of this small wooden box on a tall hill facing the setting sun - determined to make it our happy place to share with everyone we love.
Now ours, we established the Dunlin Hill on Long Lake in July of 2023 - named after the dirt road on which it stood - and started ripping out it’s innards, planning the new layout and shifting our perspective from what we saw currently to what it could be. If we were able to have a conversation with the previous owners, questions would be asked such as “Why did you decide to put the stairs to the second level on the outside?” and “Speaking of stairs, why did you leave the remaining six steps down to the lake unfinished?”. But we can’t ask these questions and so we move forward and adjust as we run into rot and carpenter ants and warped boards.
The best course of action, we decide, is to bring Mr. Dunlin down to his bones so we can assess - cut out the cancerous bits and replace them it with green-treated, find new ways to bring light in, plan for the cold Minnesota winters. And this is what we do - Terry, Jacki, Molly and I - pull down the low canvas ceiling, pull up the carpet in the bathroom, bring down the walls and expose the rough-cut beams and uneven concrete floor. Now comes the ‘what it could be’.
We will plan, fail at first and then adapt - adjust. But in the end, this small box on a tall hill is ours. We will be good stewards, make this place beautiful again and create a spot to rest our busy souls.