Montreal Mining Company - June 2018

We returned to the UP just about every other week last year, to work on the cabins. After cleaning the first one out, we started gutting the inside, focusing on the downstairs. Most of it was lath and plaster which was covered with wood planks in the bar and kitchen, fake wood paneling in the living room, and dodgy sheet-rock in the upstairs bedrooms.

We ripped out the kitchen ceiling, exposing a vaulted ceiling with rough cut rafters. Next we tackled the living room walls. First went the paneling, followed by the ceiling with fake wood beams, and finally the lath. The squirrel that lived in the beams was most displeased with the noise and the dust and decided to move out. It’s quite possible he has moved back in the meantime, but I haven’t seen any evidence of him.

After we cleared the bedrooms of everything but a wood stove, an antique iron bed frame, and a dresser, we set up camp upstairs with cots, blow up mattress pads, and sleeping bags we could leave behind. Once I figured out a semi-permanent solution to keep the mosquitoes out, it was really quite comfy up there. And relatively clean.

To collect all the debris, we had a thirty or forty ton dumpster delivered, I can’t remember the size but it was huge, which we filled up at an alarming speed. We made great big campfires with the wood we cannot reuse, everything else went in the dumpster.

It wasn’t all work and no play, much to Lola’s relief. We finally stopped at the Hanka Homestead, an outdoor museum depicting life of Finnish immigrants in the Upper Peninsula one hundred years ago. We used to drive by it every time we came up from Milwaukee, and it has been on my to-do list forever. It is a very well maintained homestead with several barns and a spring house, looked after by volunteers, and I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the neighborhood. Bring bug spray!

Montreal Mining Company - May 2018

The original idea for the cabins was to fix them both up at the same time, but that turned out to not be financially viable. Instead we focused on the house that was in desperate need of a new roof and siding. For two reasons, really: 1) without a new roof, it would not last much longer, and 2) it had a working wood stove. We contacted a local contractor by the name of Walt to quote us a metal roof and siding, as well as new windows and a driveway.

Unfortunately the price of steel increased substantially between the initial quote and our order. So much in fact, that we decided to change course altogether. We still contracted out the roof because we’re afraid of heights, but are seriously considering doing the rest ourselves. One room at a time, we will remove the old lath and plaster, and put in insulation and tongue and groove planking. New windows, new flooring if needed, and finally new siding, starting with the front because that needs it most.

We butted heads a little on the insulation. Ryan was a big supporter of spray foam insulation, while I felt using fiberglass or foam sheets would allow us to scour CraigsList and save some money. While I agree that spray foam is the superior product, it requires the whole house to be done at once. I was still making my case for fiberglass when I removed the old insulation in the kitchen, encountering a snake nest with live occupants. Needless to say, I instantly saw the light. Spray foam insulation it is.

After the initial cleaning in April, we returned in May to find the snow gone, in its place a lot of previously buried treasures. We discovered a decrepit golf cart, piles and piles of lumber, an unusually large number of utensils, and tons of beer cans and bottles. In short, more to clean up. Cleaning would be the recurring theme for the Summer of 2018. We cleaned the yard, the upstairs, and even the outhouse. We then moved the outhouse further back on the property because it’s just not that great a thing to have in your outdoor sitting area.

We had help. One of Ryan’s high school friends came up to give us a hand, bringing his daughter to keep Lola company while he and Ryan broke up the bunk beds and chucked a dozen mattresses, old chairs, and other random furniture out the window.

Progress is slow, but it is being made. And every now and then we’re getting a glimpse of what it will look like when it’s done.

Montreal Mining Company - April 2018

I don’t know about you but I prefer my blog posts with photos, especially when reporting on renovation projects. Yet it is those same photos that trip me up. Because pictures need to be selected, downloaded, edited, and when taken with an iPhone, converted to a different file format. And before you know it, a year has passed, and no progress reporting has been done. That doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything, though. On the contrary.

We worked hard on the UP properties last year. Starting in April, we traveled north just about every other weekend, and cleaned our butts off. Moving from Milwaukee to Wausau the year before meant cutting our trip in half, time-wise, bringing it to approximately four hours.

During the month of April, the world was still covered in several feet of snow, making it impossible to drive onto the property. We would park on the road and slip and slide down to houses, with cleaning supplies and wood for the wood burner.

The previous owner was not able to clean out the cabins for health reasons, and he ended up donating almost everything in them to us. While that was a very generous offer, the cabins were mainly used as a guys’ hunting camp and the decor wasn’t quite what we had in mind, with the exception of the log table/bench you see below. It was put there by the miners some 100 years ago and it, and its mate because there are two, is not going anywhere. They are too heavy to carry out so we renovate around them.

We started by cleaning up the bar area. All of the windows need replacing but for now a blanket covers up the cracks. After that we tackled the rest of the downstairs area.

It wasn’t all work and no play, though. All this snow needs to be appreciated while it’s still there.

New Adventures In The UP

Hey there! Yes, it’s been awhile. Almost four years in fact. The three of us are well. New jobs, new address, new school--the usual. I recommend using pencil to write down our address. Tempting as it is, I am not going to sum up the past four years. The only thing I will tell you is that Sandman died. We knew it was coming but it was still heartbreaking when it became clear his time had come. He died on November 29, 2017 at the ripe old age of seventeen years, eight months, and an unknown number of days. I miss him. He was such a cool cat.

Of course a new location means a new blog name is in order since our adventures are no longer taking place on the southside of Milwaukee. I have decided to take the location out of the name and go neutral: The Dutch Girl’s Adventures. Nice and simple, and it can follow me everywhere we go. I did run into a Blogger issue when I tried to make the changes on the blog itself. I am able to change the sidebar items but not the theme or the header, and I cannot add a new post, nor edit existing ones. This is a problem, obviously. Hence my move to Wordpress and the new domain: thedutchgirlsadventures dot COM. Dot NET with all my previous posts will remain active until I figure out how to transfer them. (ETA: the Wordpress blog is not working out for me and since I was able to figure out the Blogger issues, I am going to continue working at Dot NET.)

So why pick up my virtual pen again? Well, we purchased some land in the UP. We started small with eight acres back in 2015. But last year our neighbor put his land up for sale and we were able to buy it from him. His acreage came with two cabins. Two very old, very dilapidated mine workers’ homes which we will be fixing up this year. The two houses were part of a row of ten or twelve miners’ homes when the Delaware mine across the road was still in operation, and the only ones left standing.

I am looking forward to posting about our progress. We're going up this weekend to do some more cleaning. The cabins have acted as a deer camp for Yooper dudes for the past twenty-odd years. The left house is also home to a mouse family while a squirrel, or two, resides in the house on the right. And then there's the flies. Oh God, the flies..., so, so many. Evidently they hibernate. All they need is a little heat to awaken. They huddle together on the walls behind posters and such. The higher the paper content, they better they seem to like it. When I started taking down the decor in the makeshift bar, I was surprised by hundreds of live flies. [Shudder.]

Before I host a tour of the inside in the coming days, it's good to remind everyone, ourselves perhaps most of all, that Ryan and I are no strangers to fixing up hovels. Once upon a time we turned this:

into this:

We can do this. And this time around, we have a contractor. More to come soon.

Clearance Sale

There is a big empty spot in our kitchen where our beautiful antique cooking stove used to be. It was picked up last night by its new owners. For the remainder of our Olympic Adventure we will have to make do with a microwave, a pizza oven, a rice cooker, and one measly hot plate if we wish to eat.

The big Clearance Sale has begun. The weather does not allow for a yard sale, we do not have a garage, and there is not enough room in the barn for a barn sale. We are making do with Craig's List instead. So far we have been quite successful. In addition to the stove, we have sold our jetted claw foot bathtub and our riding lawn mower.


It saddens us to see everything go. Selling our stuff off makes leaving Washington and suspending this dream very real. The stove especially since it was the first item we stored inside our home and used on a daily basis. It fit the barn perfectly and literally leaves a void. But we tell ourselves everything is replaceable and there will be other cool stoves and bathtubs. And we can take our dream with us to Wisconsin and wherever else we will go.

We find solace in the fact that our things are going to good homes. The tub is on a barge right now, sailing to Alaska, to warm a lovely couple that knows all about roughing it. The lawnmower has been purchased by a church and is doing God's work. And the stove now lives in a converted granary to be cooked on by another European immigrant. Very cool. I know it is silly but it really matters to us. Ryan and I are such dorks.

Releasing My Inner Martha

For most of my adult life I secretly wanted to be Martha Stewart. I never realized this, of course, in fact I didn't even know who Martha Stewart was for the majority of those years.

My desire would mainly surface at the end of summer. Every year at the arrival of autumn, when it was time to go back inside and turn on the heat, I wished to transform my home into a beautifully decorated palace. I ambitiously wanted to organize elegant dinner parties for friends and family to celebrate my birthday, or Christmas, or simply the season.

It has never happened the way I envisioned. Mainly due to lack of energy and creativity. By the time I had baked an apple pie or decorated the Christmas tree, I was pretty much done. I never spent the holidays at my apartment, anyway.

Now that I have a family of my own, I want to be like Martha even more. I wish to grow my own vegetables and cook wonderfully healthy meals every day (the zucchini soup is a start) whilst arranging roses cut from my own garden and decorating my barn. And with Halloween and Thanksgiving, there are even more holidays to celebrate now.

To make matters worse, I have become rather addicted to reading craft and decorating blogs. There are many Martha's out there, I tell you. Stay at home moms, career women, home schoolers, or any combination thereof. I share with these inspiring women a love of thrift stores, the Dollar Tree, yard sales, and spray paint. Not much else it seems, because I have no idea how they can work, raise children, run a household, whip out a crafty project every day and blog about it, too.

When we installed the windows, I vowed to make the barn more of a home. Now that we have space and light, it's time to decorate. It is a bit of a challenge though, since we have no shelves, no walls, no furniture suitable for decorating really. And of course, it has to be out of Lola's reach for the time being.

People without gardens can still garden. It's called container gardening, I did it for years. I would like to introduce the concept of Container Decorating. I took the last of my fruit crates, hung it and decorated it for All Hallows Eve.


There are two projects out there that I am particularly in love with: the googly eyes wreath and the faux mercury glass pumpkins. Having limited space and being on a copper kick still, I altered them to fit my needs. (Also, I am too cheap to buy 'funkins', I buy my all fakes at the dollar store.)



Lola helped too. She handled the hammer like a pro.



I am very pleased with my container, if I do say so myself. I feel confident Martha would approve, if only because I used her felt webbing.

Go check out more great ideas at Its So Very Cheri!

Rinse And Repeat

Why settle for one window when you can have three?

This time I assisted with the heavy lifting. It was a little scary because the windows really do weigh quite a bit and I was afraid they would topple over. With me on the outside and Ryan on the inside there was no way I would have been able to stop them from falling backwards. But they didn't and all is well.

Hole In The Wall

How to bring light in the darkness in eight simple steps:

Step one
Build the window frame. Careful measuring is crucial here!


Step two
Take a break to clean the gutters. Not really necessary for proper window placement, strictly speaking, but much appreciated.


Step three
Cut a hole in the wall. This is a VERY scary step.





Step four
Remove the cat from the new window opening. Essential.


Step five
Place the window. Enlisting the help of a good friend for the heavy lifting rather than working with your wife on this step is better for your marriage and her back. Unfortunately no wife means no photographer.


Step six
Take pride in your work.


Step seven
Mentally prepare for an eternity of grubby fingerprints on the glass.


Step eight
Enjoy the view. And the light!


Ryan did good. Real good. And did I mention he figured out how to light the oven without blowing up the barn, too? My husband rocks, people!

And never before have I enjoyed window washing this much!