The Cottage on the Edge

 

"For years, I've been sitting, waiting for someone to love me enough to touch me, and I saw them today.

The family came, all together, laughing, tossing pinecones into the river. Arms and hands overflowing with babies.

One of the daughters asked, "May I touch the cottage?"

She doesn't know the ceremony I felt as she graduated me out loud from an office to a cottage: From a place of work to a place of rest.

They talked about my future driveway, future back door, future loft. They looked at me and saw the future, where others had only seen the past. 

I always sit on the edge of the river, the edge of the city, but today I sat on the edge of the future, and, boy, was it bright."

Instagram caption. October 28th @thecottageontheedge

I fall in love with buildings. When I pass them, I imagine saving them. Scooping them up, opening their windows, and painting their walls. I imagine filling them with beautiful furniture and fanciful memories.

Every time we passed this building, it tugged at me. Its smallness, amplifying its cuteness. Its disrepair, amplifying its need for love.

We knew the owners were the same family that we bought our dream house from, and so we reached out, with only the knowledge that they weren't actively using the cottage, and offered them money for a one room cottage on the edge of the river. 

It took them awhile, three elderly brothers in a couple different states, but they accepted our offer, and now, Lord willing, we're fifteen days from closing!

It's been unused for years, and there's a "skylight" in the peak of the roof that has been letting in the weather and the wildlife for years, so when we say it's a gut job, we're not exaggerating, but I can already see the cute kitchen with the picture window (neither the kitchen nor the window currently exist) overlooking the river and the anniversary nights that couples will spend away from their kids. Lord willing, it will be a short-term rental at some point in 2023, but there's a lot of work between now and then! Excited to bring you along!