Happy weekend friends! My goal has been to write a blog post at least once per month and of course I seem to be writing them at the very end of each month lol. Oh well…nothing like waiting to the last minute. However, I am at least happy that I have in fact written a blog post every month since January! Wahoo:).

So how have you been? I started school August 7th so it has been incredibly busy. I started my 22nd year teaching high school art. I have been at the same school since I began my teaching career which has been super cool. My oldest daughter started as a freshman this year at the school I teach and it is awesome.

When I am not teaching I am at our cozy, little island house Friday nights to Sunday late afternoon. To get to our house we have to take a ferry since it is on a small island in the middle of Lake Erie. My parents built their island house here 15 years ago and for the longest time we stayed with them. It got a bit crowded however when we started having kids and so four years ago my dreams came true and my husband and I purchased a piece of property near the historic part of the island with a little lake view.

Building on an island is not for the faint of heart. It has been crazy and my husband who is super handy has luckily been able to do a lot to save on costs while allowing us to make our new build home charming and cozy. We are not finished by any means with the interior but we have made major progress. I wanted to show you a couple of before and after pictures. We still need art and a couple more accessories throughout but it has really come a LONG way from where we started. Let’s start with the front of the house.

The front of our house summer 2024. It looked crazy!

The front of the house currently in 2025. My husband added a pergola, fixed the deck and we planted Limelights. I feel like Limelights solve everything sometimes!

Now let’s look at the living room and dining room. No floors or character yet in this photo.

This is what our house looked like inside at first.

This is what it looked like at the end of 2024. Floors were in but no character on the walls and furniture not in yet.

Currently in August 2025 our living room and dining area. We have furniture! Crown molding and painting have been completed.

This area of our living room has not been finished but I wanted to show you what my husband is working on. He built the arch and added a fireplace. He still has to tile the fireplace and add a mantle. Hopefully soon!

Here is our dining room! We just got these cool Pottery barn chairs in yesterday. Love them!

We added wainscoting (that took forever!!!!!) painted the walls and added some lovely coastal furniture from Potterybarn.

So those are some of the fun updates we did so far. I can’t wait to show you more updates once we add those. Next spring my husband is going to tackle the kitchen. He is adding a backsplash and a fun coffee bar. Stay tuned for those updates.

Thanks for reading my blog today, I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Michelle