One of my best buds recently told me, "You need to focus on skiing, golfing, and surfing. Everything else is just noise."

This meme pretty well encapsulates how my new mantra — thanks, Matt! — fits into my current thinking about housing, and how I want to spend my dwindling time on the planet.

It's also a bit of a joke. We definitely do plan on building in Door County, but it may be a little while before things kick back into gear. When they do, I'll start the blog back up. See you then!

The MVC (Minimum Viable Cottage) is part of an 8-lot development called High Bluff Estates.

We're not crazy about the "Estates" part, though anything more than 5 acres is an "estate" in Door County, Wisconsin.

"High Bluff" makes sense since these lots are on one of the highest points in the county.

Anyhow, I signed up to design the logo for this tiny development, and here's what I came up with (which was approved during the 4/19 HOA meeting).

Wait. Before I show it, I should note the objectives:

• Simple
• Legible on signage
• Highlight the Niagara Escarpment
• Highlight the highness of HBE compared to the other Door County bluff sites (hence the name).
• With some imagination, show the surrounding area and even the eight building sites.
• Surprise and delight, with an element not everyone will see at first, but will say "Ahhh." when they see it later.

Here's a description of each part of the logo. Very little of this will make sense if you're unfamiliar with the area. Even if you are familiar with the area you need to use your imagination as I've taken some liberties with the overall elevation (i.e., it's not to scale).

The logo has already appeared on our inaugural annual HOA billing statement, and will next show up on signage: I'm laser etching this on some of the oak I've had milled. Can't wait to see how that turns out.

Hey. Thanks for checking out this cottage build blog.

On August 5, 2022 my wife and I closed on a 5-acre lot in Door County, Wisconsin. We're building a cottage on it. This site will document our progress.

This journal is going to be super casual, and sometimes veer off on weird tangents, but here, broadly, is the rationale for the site, and the type of content to expect.

• Selfishly, dack.com/cottage is primarily for me, Dack, as a place to document our cottage build progress. But even more important than documenting it as it happens is documenting the information I'll gather along the way *before* the build, so I can refer to it when we're actually in the middle of having to make decisions. The web is a great medium for this. Additionally, by writing about it, upon review it will either validate or challenge my current thinking, and I like that.
• A close second is that sharing our experience can hopefully help a fellow owner-builder on their journey. We're sure to make 1000 mistakes. With the benefit of reading this blog, perhaps someone can make just 900. That alone is worth me publishing this site.
• It would be great if the forthcoming posts opened a conversation with some of the folks I'll cite, and the manufacturers of products we'll use, to add to the depth of content. Links get people's attention. I've spent enough time on the web to know not to invest effort on moderating comments, so that is not a feature here. But I would love to hear from you the old fashioned way: dack@dack.com. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line.
• Finally, I get to create a logo. (More on this in a future post.)

I imagine the list of topics essentially following the build process. At the beginning there will be a lot of lot clearing, lumberdacking (not a typo), milling, site planning, terrain drawings, and architecture.

Then we'll get into the actual build and cover foundations, wells, septic, timber framing, SIPs, WRBs, stonework, roofs, windows, doors, and PV.

As the structure gets enclosed it will shift to framing, electrical, plumbing, cladding, flooring, furniture, cabinets, fireplaces, and interior design.

I am surely missing a bunch of things — not to mention the weird tangents — but this is roughly what you can expect along the way.

Thanks again for coming. I hope you find it sometimes useful, and sometimes entertaining.