Category Boats

Just like in previous years, an important part of my spring is opening up the lake house, getting the boat lift in the water and the boat on the lift, restocking the bar, and getting the lake house yard in gear for summer. The first thing I did was work on clearing the yard of weeds, and clearing bramble from the path down to the water.

I then shoveled sand and dirt that accumulated over the winter down around the dock deck and stairs, and made sure the dock was good to go for summer.

After that, I did some painting touch ups on the outside of the house, most notably the window frame from the window that was broken when the new roof was put on last fall.

After that, I restocked bar and tidied up the interior of the house.

Once the house was all set, I got the boat in the water and onto the boat lift, and with some help from my friend Bret got the lift awning in place.

After that, it was time to hit the tiki bar and party cove, and enjoy the summer on the water!

As the weather has warmed up and the pandemic is starting to be firmly in the rear view mirror, it was time to open the lake house for the spring.

While this year won’t involve any major construction projects at the lake house (there was more than enough of those last summer, including painting the entire interior of the house and replacing all of the flooring), I’m planning on doing a lot of landscaping, and I also replaced some of the aging furniture in the basement with furniture that had been displaced by all of the remodeling and design work at the Verona house.

I also did some minor electrical work, including adding a switch box for the water heater so that it can be turned off with a switched as opposed to using the switch in the fuse box.

The last thing that needed to be done to truly be open for spring was to get the boat in the water and setup the awning on the boat lift. I picked up the freshly detailed boat from Skipper Bud’s, and with the help of my friend Bret got the awning installed.

This weekend, my wife and I took the boat out for the first time on a beautiful 80+ degree day. It’s time for summer!

Mid October is a beautiful time of year in Wisconsin, but unfortunately it brings with it the end of boat season. This past weekend, I had to take the awning off of the boat lift, trailer the boat, and take it to Skipper Buds for winter storage.

Always a sad day every year, but with the pandemic this year my wife and I really maximized the use of the boat, and had it in the water 30+ times which is a personal record. We’re already looking forward to bringing it back out of storage next May!

Over Memorial Day Weekend, my wife and I spent the long weekend at the lake house and I got everything ready to go for summer. First, I did some minor repair and repainting work on the stairs and railing going down to the water.

Next, I repainted the shed and did other paint touchups around the exterior of the house.

After that, I installed a new outdoor table on the deck, and anchored it to the wood so that it wouldn’t be easily blown out of position by the wind.

Next, I used my chainsaw to chop up some of the downed trees from last spring that I had left where they fell. This opened up the paths to the left side of our land and made the view from the deck nicer.

Deano Dock and Lift came by and reset the dock, which had been knocked out of position over the winter, and I repainted the stairs that connect directly to the dock. This will likely be the last summer that this dock is in place, it’s showing its age and I am looking to switch to a dock that will have fewer problems with the current coming off of the river.

The last major task was to install the canopy and awning at the boat lift, which is always a somewhat miserable task since the heavy canvas has to be pulled over the the lip of the awning and dragged across the top while standing in the boat.

Once that was done, it was time to restock the fridge and the bar at the lake house, and then get out on the water.

It’s been a beautiful couple of weekends of boating so far this year, hopefully the good weather continues!

Now that winter is giving way to spring and the weather is warming up, I’ve started getting the lake house ready for summer. Last week, I went up and cleared out fallen branches and leaves from the winter, and made sure the stairs were free from damage. As always, the view was beautiful!

The paint from last spring is all still in good shape too:

The one thing that unfortunately was amiss was that my dock service apparently forgot to remove my dock for winter, which is not good. However, the dock appears to all still be in one piece and just needs to be reset.

Hopefully it can be put back into the right spot soon and be fully read to go for spring. In the meantime, the boat lift is in the water at the Bayview Boat Club, and as the sun set over Lake Wisconsin it was easy to imagine being on the boat in the next few weeks!

This past week was a sad one, as I had to take the boat out of the slip, trailer it, and pack it up for winter storage at Skipper Bud’s. The Bayview Boat Club is going to take care of removing and storing the lift, and Deano Dock’s is going to take care of removing and storing the dock. That meant all I had to do was take the awning cover off of the lift, put it in the boat, and haul everything back to Madison.

After that, it sat in front of my house for a week until my appointment to drop it off at Skipper Bud’s, where it will sit until spring and the return of warm weather.

We finally have the dock in the water, which is nice even though it took until mid August. In the chaos of getting the boat lift and boat moved over to the Bayview Boat Club, along with the persistent high waters on our part of Lake Wisconsin, I think that Deano Docks forgot about our dock. It wasn’t a major problem since I was working on repairing and replacing the stairs.

Getting the dock in the water coincides with getting the stairs finished and stained, which look really good with the dock!

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I was finally able to get the boat in the water! The prior week, the owner of the Bayview Boat Club was able to get a barge crew to install the lift in the water, after Deano Docks was unable or unwilling to.

It took a little bit of bribery, but in the end it was definitely worth it to not have to continue waiting on Deano.

The weekend of the Fourth, I trailered the boat and launched it, and after cruising the lake for a couple of hours I docked it on the lift, and used the deck of the boat to get the lift cover put on.

The slip is easy to get in and out of, and it’s been awesome to get the boat on the water multiple times every weekend since the lift went in. Here’s to an awesome rest of the summer of boating!

After a second consecutive year of terrible weather and flooding on the Wisconsin River during the month of June, I made a somewhat drastic decision: I bought a slip at the Bayview Boat Club in Tipperary Bay on Lake Wisconsin, which is a much more stable part of the lake. I’m maintaining by dock at the lake house and will likely buy a jet ski and/or kayaks to keep at the house, while keeping the boat at a location that will make it usable from May until September. It also has the benefit of being right next to the tiki bar at the Moose!

It was a pretty quick process to get the slip, which is located here:

Now I’m just waiting on Deano Docks to do the install, which (after a significant bribe on my part) is allegedly going to do before the weekend.

Here’s to a great July, August, and September of boating!

This past weekend, I truly started the stair reconstruction project. Most of the beginning of the project was demolition: removing bad railing that needed to be replaced, angle grinding pieces of metal sticking up out of the ground, and ripping out rotting boards.

After that, I had to fix the posts on the final staircase, which had fallen over the winter and was hanging on for dear life. I used a bottle jack to lift the stairs back into position, and then screwed in temporary 4×4 beams to hold it in place while I attached the real treated 4×4 posts.

It is now stable, and can support the dock when it is finally installed by Deano. From there, I moved onto the landing above the stairs, which had badly rotted. I used treated 2x4s to build a stable structure that would support the floor boards, which will go in next week.

Next week, during the four day Fourth of July Weekend, I’m going to finish removing the sand and dirt that had fallen onto the stairs, and finish installing the new floor boards.

For now, I’m off to Las Vegas for a fun vacation weekend!