Summer at Camp Lucky Dog

As promised, I am here to share some summer pictures of our family's cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate NY. This cabin has been in my husband's family since 1984, when his parents bought it with another couple.  We purchased it from them last year and have been working on it slowly to make it a place for our children to enjoy with us for many many years to come. I think you can see why we decided to name our cabin Camp Lucky Dog from the picture below!

The front porch is always a favorite spot to hang out. Billy recently asked me if I wanted to put a fresh coat of paint on the Adirondack style love seat that has been sitting on the porch since I came here and I said, NO! I love the chippy look of this. I love that it shows the history and all that vintage goodness. And I realized that that's my approach to everything about this cabin. Nothing polished, just a well loved place full of memories.

The green pine tree shutters are a new addition to the cabin this year. Billy built them himself and I love how much personality they add. We plan to add a window box to that upper window but we are waiting until we get a fresh coat of brown paint on in the next few weeks before we do that. We also have plans to widen those steps so the door is more centered and update the railing but we are holding off on that until the price of lumber comes back down to a somewhat reasonable price.

We added in an island of plants and flowers and a birch tree in memory of my dad. Little did we know when we planted that tree this spring that we would also be saying goodbye to another beloved parent in a few short weeks. Billy lost his mom this May and it's been a profound loss for us all, but especially him. She chose this house because she always wanted a front porch and spent many hours watching the hummingbirds on this porch. I know we will always feel her presence strongly here.

We tend to throw ourselves in a project when life gets hard, I guess it's a coping mechanism that has become a go-to of ours through the years. And so we decided to add a new island to the kitchen at the cabin. We had previously had a small, moveable island but it just didn't give us a big enough space to prepare food or a place to gather when the whole family is here.  I lamented for weeks over just how big to make it so it didn't overpower the room yet made better use of the space.

We gained lots of storage and now our garbage pails are built into the island. I'm very happy with how it turned out and the first weekend that I saw all of our boys and their girlfriends gathered around it, I knew we made the right decision in adding it.

The next purchase we are saving up for is a new range. In the meantime, it's fun to shop for one. We are considering either a Z-Line or Ilve 36 inch range in either white or red. We will switch over to a dual fuel range at that point because we prefer cooking on a gas stovetop.

We're also enjoying the banquette seating we added last year to the eating area. The advantage of working on a house that we have lived in for years is that we knew which areas needed improvement. Last weekend, this cabin was full of family and friends and we added a leaf to this table to gather as many people around it as we could fit. There's not much else in life that makes me happier.

There is a wide hallway that connects the kitchen area to the the family room.

The mudroom is a very hard working space in this cabin.

It's hard to remember what this corner of the family room looked like before we added this desk and shelves.

Finally, our latest project was the addition of this porch swing to the back porch. It's the perfect spot to read or take an afternoon nap. I can't wait to see what it looks like once the leaves begin to change colors in fall.

Thanks for stopping by today. It's hard to believe that we only have a few more weeks of summer but I am very much looking forward to fall at the cabin too.

One last thing, my husband started an Instagram account where he shares my pictures of the cabin that never make it to my main Instagram page. We'd love to have you follow along at Camp Lucky Dog if you'd like to see more of our projects and adventures at the cabin.