Two Smaller Homes for One Big Adventure

DISCLAIMER: Okay, before I begin this blog post, I want to acknowledge that it is seeping in privilege. And I’m not only speaking about financial privilege. Adam and I are both spoiled with supportive families and flexible careers among dozens of other privileges. I loathe that saying, “Everyone has the same 24 hours!” because they do not, and in a similar vein, I want to acknowledge that we were able to pull off our living situation because of privileges many do not have.

Right then.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

1: I learn about tiny houses, and I’m forever changed. (Because holy cannoli, they are CUTE!)

Way back in the pre-pandemic days of 2019, my mother-in-law’s cousin (who I just adore!!) brought up the idea of tiny houses to me. She was telling us about a plot of land they had for sale in the Adirondacks and said, “You could put one of those cute tiny houses on it.”

I started to watch tiny home tours on YouTube and was amazed at people’s creativity. There were folks (sometimes, entire families!) living in remodeled shipping containers, buses, campers, and, my favorite, tiny houses on wheels.

But even more inspiring than the downright adorableness of these homes were the intentions behind them. Minimalism, environmentalism, living debt free. Prioritizing people and experiences over stuff.

And so, a great love affair began, friends. (If you’ve read Pop, Fizz, Clink, voilà! Here is my tiny house enthusiast origin story.)

2: The five-year itch sets in. (Just with our home, thank God. Marriage is great!)

Adam and I bought our first home in 2017. It’s just lovely with its ballet slipper pink stucco and dusty blue shutters. She’s an old gal at 100 years old, and we’ve really made the house our own over the years. At 1500 square feet, it’s a fine size for our family of three humans and three dogs, but it’s certainly not considered large by Midwest standards.

In 2022, we’d been in our home for five years. Many of our friends were starting to outgrow their starter homes and upgrading to larger places. Is that what we should do? Lord knows I wanted a foyer, and a covered front porch, more charming built-ins, and perhaps a second full bathroom wouldn’t have been too shabby either!

We actually toured a home that was pretty darn perfect—I still sometimes think about that house and its dreamy breakfast nook—but it was on a busy street. And with three dogs and a newborn baby, that felt dicey. Besides, we were having discussions about something else…

3: What if we lived smaller in two places rather than larger in one?

Adam’s grandfather is from the Adirondacks, and he spent his childhood summers at his grandparents’ camp. They had a dock and everything! It’s such a magical spot. The first time Adam took me to that small hamlet, I felt the strangest sensation. Honestly, it wasn’t that different from the first time I met Adam, a mix of excitement and comfort. It’s a strange combination, giddiness and contentment, like coming home to something familiar but also the anticipation of all there is to learn and explore.

Ever since that very first visit, I dreamed of having an Adirondack camp. (A camp is a cabin. It’s similar to how Michiganders call theirs cottages.)

By 2022, we’d been through the pandemic and watched a dear friend become terminally ill. Life felt more fragile than ever. We were also parents now, and our priorities and perspective had completely shifted. Finally, I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and Cincinnati’s hot and humid summers were starting to feel unbearable. My MS symptoms went haywire in those conditions, and I felt miserable.

What if we made our starter home our forever home? And used the money we would have invested in a larger place into a tiny Adirondack camp instead?

4: I become obsessed with Adirondack real estate.

I was constantly checking the real estate apps for camps for sale in Long Lake and its surrounding towns (Blue Mountain Lake, Tupper Lake, Indian Lake, etc.) I would also peruse spots like Saranac Lake, Inlet, and Schroon Lake.

We were working with a small budget ($150,000ish), but that wasn’t the tough part. We love historic homes, and we yearned for an old camp bursting with that rustic Adirondack charm. Even when we’d find an old camp, it had often been renovated, but not in a classic “old meets new, and isn’t this lovely?” kind of way. The renovations were a bit more chaotic than that. Like, maybe the kitchen had been remodeled in the 70s and the family room had an 80s drop ceiling, while the bathroom was early 2000s brown/beige…

Yikes. Lots going on there.

5: I find our dream camp in a very unlikely spot.

Like many historic home enthusiasts, I adore the Instagram account @cheapoldhouses, and I love their HGTV show. I actually signed up for a subscription so I could access the account’s secret feed, which features the crème de la crème of cheap old houses.

And get this: within days, I came across a post for a “vintage woodsy cabin” that was “cozy and comfy, nestled in a wonderful area”…and it was in the Adirondacks!!! The camp was a short walk to the lake and tucked in a grove of pine trees.

It was in a town called Lake Luzerne. We had never been to Lake Luzerne (lol), but it looked lovely based on Google Images. Plus, President Grant—a fellow Ohioan—had vacationed there, so how’s that for a ringing endorsement?

I sent the post to Adam, and to my surprise and delight, he was interested!!! Adam is the pragmatic part of our dynamic duo, so this was a shocking plot twist.

Even crazier? It turned out Lake Luzerne was only 15 minutes away from the property my in-laws owned!

6: We must act quick. It is sort of stressful!

My mother-in-law’s best friend and her husband were able to tour the camp for us (SO LUCKY!), and they gave their stamp of approval.

We had no real estate agent, so I reached out to the listing agent who paired us with a colleague. Her colleague, Lisa, was amazing. So calm, capable, and friendly. And thank God we enlisted the help of Lisa because as it turned out? A lot of people thought this camp was absolutely perfect and wanted it too. A bidding war ensued, and while our offer wasn’t the strongest, I had penned a letter that won the seller over. We didn’t have to compromise an inspection either!

Adam was able to fly up for the inspection. The cabin was built in 1930 and had been in one family for its entire life. I thought the results of the inspection were scary, but Adam is an old house aficionado, and he assured me this was all quite normal and the problems were fixable.

7: We celebrate!!!

Oh my God, we owned an Adirondack camp!!!!!!!!

8: The work begins. And good gravy, it’s a lot of work.

You guys, when Marigold and I first saw the camp in March 2023, it was freezing cold and snowy. But not magical snowy. More like “weeks-old snow that’s largely turned into ice” snowy. The cabin was dark and cold, and I wondered, What have we done?

That summer, we lived with my in-laws while Adam and our guardian angel handyman Connor got to work. Here is just a glimpse of all that needed to be done:

• New electric

• Insulation

• Tree removal (This was a freaking fortune. I still feel sick when I think about that number.)

• New septic system (Not as pricey as we feared! And it meant we could have a washing machine!)

• Total gut of the bathroom

• Addition of a sleeping loft

Holy. Cannoli.

Were we doomed? Adam and I both didn’t know.

9: It was all worth it. Seriously.

We were able to stay in our camp for the first time that fall, and it will forever be a special memory of mine.

The cabin was very much a work in progress—you could still see the spray foam ceilings, for example—but it was finally livable and really starting to feel like us, like ours. We made so many cozy meals on that trip, went apple-picking in Vermont (where we met Alec Baldwin, I kid you not), attended our first Adirondack Balloon Festival, and took countless strolls along the pine-covered roads.

We were home.

10: A tale of two cities.

So, here we are, beginning our third summer in the Adirondacks. The camp is far from finished, but we're trying to slow down and enjoy this rehab journey. (And, you know, not blow our savings.) The big to-dos are done, and we live here quite comfortably.

I love living in two places—I’m a Sagittarius, and I think it appeals to that wanderlust of mine—and I appreciate different things about each town.

Summers in upstate New York have become a respite not only for me and my MS but for our entire little family. We’re so much more active up here, and we spend so much more time outside. We spend so much more time together. (There are few places to run away from each other in a 600-square-foot cabin.)

And the rest of the year in Cincinnati means time with family, friends, and neighbors. It means access to the most wonderful library system, museums, and zoo. It means walks to the coffee shop and park, delicious restaurants.

We have a print above our bed here at camp that says, “I think I like this little life.” And jeez louise, isn’t that the truth?