We didn’t close on the Stoney Clove property until February 2020 — just weeks before the world shut down. What followed was a frantic, all-in renovation sprint fueled by stubborn hope, caffeine, and a pile of credit cards. We had no income, no bookings, and no real plan beyond make it work.
The first step was the cabin — smaller, faster, and easier to warm up in the winter. If we could just get that livable, maybe we could bring in some early renters and start making the mortgage.
It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t smart. But it was ours.
The cabin felt like a foothold. Everything else on the property — the lodge, the back house, the field — would take time, permits, and money we didn’t have. But the cabin? We could clean it, patch it, paint it. We could learn as we went.
It had good bones: tucked between trees, with the sound of the creek just out the window. If people were going to fall in love with this place, this was where it would start.
We had no formal training in construction. Just a 30-year mortgage and a half-functioning propane heater. So we patched the roof. We scoured Facebook Marketplace for furniture. We stayed up late painting walls in the freezing cold and tried not to panic when the credit card balances climbed.
This wasn’t a weekend project. This was survival. We couldn’t afford the mortgage, but we couldn’t afford not to pay it. The only way out was through — so we worked.
Every hour of every day that we weren’t parenting or trying to feed ourselves, we were sanding floors or hauling trash or learning how to seal a window in 15° weather.
The goal was simple: get someone in the cabin. Just one renter. Just enough income to stop the bleeding.