Family Photo by Christina Palmer , CS Photos , www . csphotos . mypixieset . com
This past summer , Mandy and I embarked on a new adventure . We ’ ve undertaken many renovation projects together over our ten years of marriage but our long search for the perfect renovation project was unsuccessful .
That ’ s when we decided to build our family cottage and film the process . To say we were unprepared for the strain this adventure would put on our marriage and finances would be an understatement ! It took some creative planning and out of the box thinking to bring our dream to reality .
As with any project , it ’ s all in the planning and that ’ s why we started working with Aaron and his team at L . A . W Electric to help plan out the electrical and lighting plan of the cottage space . Any good design has a well thought-out lighting scheme and their expertise helped make this a reality . We also knew that we wanted to integrate solar energy into the cabin so we worked with Lorena at Evolve Green to shed some light on how to create sustainable energy for this cottage project . When it came to insulating the space , we visited Olympic Building Centre for all our insulation and drywall needs .
The first hurdle we had to face was fitting all of our dreams into the project without going over budget . A small footprint helped keep the project within budget but required some creative design choices along the way to make our vision a reality ! We wanted a space that could be used to entertain which , as you can imagine , can be tricky when working with less square footage . We knew that we didn ’ t want