Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post #3100: Cabin changes
I have not written about our cabin at Link Lake in ages! Mostly because I haven’t been there since October – but also because there have been changes afoot in our ownership structure that have taken a few months to sort out. We’re right on the cusp of that sorting though (documents are being signed shortly) so I feel like I can talk about it now.
Our cabin in the interior of BC was bought as a piece of bare land five years ago with three partners involved in the purchase Brian/Me, Leung and Dave. We hired a builder to do the initial construction, with a plan to do or hire out the finishing work ourselves (in our case, finishing involves putting in a well and septic – so it’s a bit more involved). The cabin is not finished, but is in a totally usable state – we’ve got a woodstove, electricity, and wifi – and is well insulated for winter use. This last summer we put up railings so the deck wasn’t such a death trap – and bit by bit we’ve been doing the small work.
Bigger work hasn’t been happening though – and we’ve been a bit stalled, owing to the fact our land-partner Dave became disenchanted with the project a couple of years ago for a number of reasons (building codes, not the type of build he had originally envisioned, more money than he originally planned on spending etc). Since that time, we’ve been trying to sell his share in the cabin and bring on another partner, and because we no longer had three partners to put in $, large scale projects like a well got put on hold.
While jointly owning a recreation property is awesome on a number of fronts, it should come as no surprise that it’s a challenge to sell a share in a property like this. Selling to a stranger is out, but we don’t have a lot of friends who can come up with a large enough chunk of cash to buy in (even though it’s a steal for recreation property within 4 hours of Vancouver) — and of the friends who had money and were interested, two different couples came up to try it out for a weekend on their own and decided that it wasn’t for them after all.
We didn’t cast the net wide – preferring to let people come to us organically and vetting interest as it arose. We didn’t want to rush anything, nor did we have to. Our partnership agreement is pretty clear that the person who wants out has to do the selling of their share, and since Dave wasn’t pushing it, we didn’t have a hurry to find someone — which it turns out was very lucky because the perfect new land partner materialized this fall in the form of our friend Lisa!
Back in October, Brian and I were at the cabin with Leung, and our friend Lisa came up to visit for a weekend – while she and I were walking the dogs down near the bird sanctuary on Osprey Lake I was recounting to her the challenges of needing to sell the share so we could move on with well-drilling and drywall, and she said… “you know, I’ve been meaning to ask you about what’s going on with Dave’s share.” And from then on we started talking about the possibility of her buying in. This fall, Lisa and her partner spent a couple of weekends at the cabin alone to “try it on” and they were hooked.
We are now days away from finalizing the paperwork and getting the cash transfer happening – we have a last-man-standing agreement, and a land ownership document that need notarizing, and then money will go to Dave and Lisa will be our new land-partner! She’s a natural fit for the property – having come up several times for work parties and hang outs – she loves the interior and the outdoors, is into rustic cabin life (though like us, she would appreciate running water), and her partner is also interested in doing more hunting and fishing in the area. Plus, she’s awesome and funny and smart and progressive – all good qualities in people you want to spend lots of time with. (Also – if we count life-partners (who are not all co-owners), there are now four women to two men involved in the Link Lake cabin!)
We’re planning a work party with our new owner in May, and the well-drill for this summer. New energy is definitely spurring us on to getting the cabin to a more finished state – it’s really such a phenomenal spot – looking at photos this morning made me all achey to return there this spring. I also came across some early pictures of when Brian, Leung and I first went to look at the property in May of 2013:
Just a little reminder of how far we’ve come in five years, and with a new land partner, how much farther we can go!
Red Cedar 
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