By John H. Fair

(Originally published July/August 2010)

Working in the garden on a hot summer day is fun, but I find I sometimes get half of the garden on me. Because of this, I decided to build an outside shower, and because our cottage has no running water or electricity, this required a little ingenuity.

I started out with a black 45-gallon drum for my water supply, a submersible sump pump, a garden hose for my plumbing, a small supply of 2 x 4s, 2 x 6s and plywood, plus a variety of miscellaneous hardware for my shower enclosure. I bought the submersible sump pump at a discount store for half price, and the garden hose came out of the garden (my wife doesn’t know it yet).

By Glenda Dekkema-de Vries

(Originally published September/October 2009)

Building a cottage from the ground up can be very costly. The Dekkema clan is always looking to cut costs without sacrificing quality, design and originality, and one of the initiatives we are most proud of is the installation of a granite wall and floor shield behind and underneath our woodstove for the cost of a few screws and spacers.

“We needed something functional that would meet the inspection, and prevent our cottage from burning down when we lit the wood stove,” laughs Rene de Vries, one of the cabin co-owners. “I thought it would cost a lot of money, but I was wrong.”

A friend of the family who works as a contractor donated some leftover granite slabs. You may not be so fortunate to have one of these resourceful friends, but there is another way. Granite shops have roughly cut remnants that are too small for builders to work with, so they sell for a fourth or fifth of the usual cost. You can use them exactly as they are. The jagged edges work well with cottage style, and the granite behind and underneath don’t have to match—just like in nature.

By Shannon McKinnon

(Originally published September/October 2009)

In a perfect world the country dweller has a barn door to open before the cows come home. You would never find yourself killing time at an auction when a beautiful flock of sheep suddenly trotted into the ring and no one else was smart enough to bid on them. And it goes without saying that you would never buy yourself an ATV, a boat or a stove for that yet-to-be-built sauna without first giving careful consideration to where you will store it.

No sir. The organized cottager always waits until the last strip of cedar is firmly nailed to the sauna seat and the final shingle is on the boathouse roof before daring so much as a glance in the classified section of the local paper.

As for the rest of us, we quickly learn to improvise. A few livestock panels, some T-posts and a tarp can give you an immediate temporary shelter that one person can put together between beverage breaks with barely a tweak of the muscles.

Story by Jane Cassie
Design by Brent Cassie

(Originally published March/April 2009)

Last spring our old dock finally reached its demise. After the winter thaw our floating playground joined the ranks of Davy Jones Locker, but as any lakefront property owner knows, their dock is a big focal point for summertime fun. Another one had to be built, and fast, in order to catch all those rays.

The following quick and simple design was the answer to our dock dilemma. We started construction in the morning, and by evening, were checking out the sunset from our new bobbing berth.

The 8 x 12-foot dock is constructed out of regular dimensional, eco-friendly, non-treated lumber. High-density foam is secured on the underside for flotation, and anchor weights are attached to two of the sides to maintain its shoreline position.

By Bill Layman

(Originally published November/December 2008)

Anyone who’s seen our house in La Ronge knows that my partner Lynda and I have “way-out-there” ideas about what a home should look like.

From the rustic un-stained board and batten poplar siding, to the painted aluminum gecko and Kokopelli figures, to the caribou antlers hanging from the deck, it just doesn’t look like the vinyl-sided clones that seem to be popping up in most new suburbs. If it was the ’60s people would say that our house looks “real funky.”

So when I ripped the deck off last year and re-built it, I was left with a dilemma. I just couldn’t seem to find a railing that would fit with the overall look of the house. Somehow everything we looked at just looked too modern and would have stuck out like a sore thumb. So for a whole year I just left the deck with no railing. However, given that the upper deck is about 12 feet off the ground, and that we like to drink beer up there at the end of the day, Lynda figured it would be real good to put up a railing before she plunged to her death.

So, I decided to make a railing with small poplar trees and copper. As always, it was a real learning project for me. And just about the time I got a good system worked out, I was finished. I made just about every time-wasting mistake any human could make; which is good for anyone who wants to replicate it, as I’m offering the quintessential guide on railing building—mistakes included!

Build an ice-fishing shelter for under $100

By David Webb

(Originally published January/February 2008)

It's winter, and for those of us who live in Canada's colder climes, this means the ice fishing season is in full swing. Ice fishing is the great equalizer, as the best fishing holes on a lake are no longer reserved for boat owners. An ice auger, a short-and-stout rod and a pair of boots are all you need get out there and catch dinner. But when the mercury starts to really drop, or when a winter wind whips across the open expanse of frozen water, ice fishing can go from fun to downright miserable. That's where an ice fishing hut comes in. Seen on lakes from Big Bar, BC to Big Whiteshell, Manitoba, these shelters come in all shapes and sizes, and can group together to form veritable shanty-towns when local lakes freeze over. Here's how you can join in the fun with your own collapsible, portable ice fishing hut — built for less than $100.