In last week’s post, I shared our journey into uncovering more of our cabin’s past. I am excited to share some updates on the history and people as well as a current update on the cabin as we push forward with the renovation!
Part 1: Looking Back
I’ve officially confirmed that our property was originally owned by the Goldfield Methodist Church! Following that breakthrough, I reached out to a Facebook page for the Oldfield, Iowa community to see if I could connect with any former campers.
That community has turned out to be an absolute gold mine of memories from people who actually stayed in this cabin and spent their summers here! A lovely, 92-year-old Marilyn, found her signature on one of the images shared on our website gallery page and had great memories and wished us happy times there as well. Many girls now have different last names and it was fun seeing the community chat about the camp.
Below are a few incredible quotes from the campers themselves, paired with a photo of a signature we uncovered on the ceiling when we finally tore down the old paneling:
We weren’t allowed to go upstairs if people were eating, because dirt would fall through the boards and on to the table below!! (Robin)
It was so fun to have that so close to the Lake!! (Kathy)
Brought high school friends & we had fun summer days together. The upstairs floor had a gap all around the cabin between upstairs floor & walls. Scary steep steps to get up there from screened-in porch. (Claudia)
To give you context, below you will see the upstairs where most campers slept. The first image is from was when we bought the cabin in 2025. There was a 1/2 bath upstairs that wasn’t there when the campers slept there – it was all one large room. The signatures were found when we tore out the paneled ceiling and insulation. We salvaged those wood floors and used them in the downstairs as a shiplap feature wall. I love that I’m learning more about who walked on those floors and the kids who left their names on the ceilings!
Part 2: Moving Forward
While I’ve been busy looking backward and collecting these beautiful pieces of history, the present has a funny way of forcing us forward. If you’ve been following our journey, you know we are firmly in the “messy middle” of this rebuild. And a sideways hailstorm just added to that mess!
The Hail Storm
It only targeted one side of the house, but it did some real damage—tearing holes straight through our siding. The silver lining? Our insurance company came through. They approved the claim to completely replace the roof, the gutters, and the siding on that entire damaged side of the house. We had tape over the holes to keep the home protected, but… as any DIYer knows, renovations don’t happen in a vacuum.
Mr. Cool Mini-Splits
Our electrician was scheduled to come out and hook up our mini-split AC units. We chose the Mr. Cool pre-charged DIY system, which is great because we saved thousands setting it up ourselves (minus the part where the electrician connects it to the power). But here’s the catch: once those lines are connected, they aren’t supposed to be disconnected. And can you guess exactly where the condenser unit had to be mounted?
Right on the side of the house that needs the siding replaced.
If we let the electrician mount connect the unit before the siding was replaced, the contractors would have to remove the unit later to do their work—potentially ruining the system. We didn’t want to cancel the electrician, but we didn’t have our siding contractor scheduled to come fix the damage yet either.
So, Mike and I did what any crazy DIY couple does: we packed up our tools on Friday and decided to replace the damaged siding ourselves.
Fixing siding in the rain
We dragged out some leftover vinyl siding from when we sided the new build last fall. Our mission was simple but urgent: replace the damaged siding on Friday so it was all ready for the electrician to connect the Mr. Cool unit on Saturday morning.
It sounds straightforward on paper. But it wasn’t.
It was drizzling. It got colder and rainier as the day went on. Vinyl siding becomes brittle and stubborn when it’s cold, and trying to precisely patch new pieces into an existing wall while shivering is an exercise in extreme patience. There were moments out there in the mud where it didn’t feel romantic, and it certainly didn’t feel historical. It just felt miserable. But we had already ripped off some of the old siding, so there was no going back.
And we had a deadline. We pushed through (Mike was a trooper… I was feeling completely overwhelmed), and we ended up just replacing the bottom third of that wall—the exact area that would sit behind the condenser—so the electrician could hook it up and the mini-splits won’t have to be disconnected when the rest of the siding is replaced.
By the time we packed up, that bottom third was finished. We ran into a snag with a few wrong electrical parts when the electrician showed up on Saturday, but he came back on Sunday and got it totally wrapped up.
Onward
The siding fix part of the weekend wasn’t exactly one of our “fun times at the lake,” but Saturday night was our annual neighborhood bash so we were able to enjoy the lake, good food, good company, and some live music. When the 4th of July rolls around next week, we know we will have a comfortable, air-conditioned house—even if the weather is just as hot and humid as it was the very first night we stayed here last summer!
Who knows, maybe we will finish the rest of the siding if the weather cooperates…would you?
