Prior to building the house, we decided to build the dock first. Every two years, Grand Valley Lake POA lowers the lake Oct-Jan so owners can work on their docks/sea walls. The builder was scheduled to start the house June of 2018. When the lake was lowered October of 2017, we jumped on the chance to start the dock. Dont ask who we used to build the dock, I would not rehire him!😫 TIP: I drew up the dock to exact specs and met with the contractor about surface design and how the boards would be installed. I then sent a follow up drawing of that discussion. When the dock was completed he tried to get more money stating changes he had to make. Any changes made were to his own error, not because of design changes. Had I not documented that In the beginning via email and drawings, he would have been even more scandalous.
One of the reasons we liked this lot, is the shape allowed the dock/boat slip to be toward the back of the lot and not obstructing your view. The lot had already been cleared, but because of POA guidelines, we were going to have to have the area where the boat slip would be dug back into the lot by about 6'. The dock is only allowed to stick out from the water line by 16'. We wanted the slip/boat house to be 12' wide, 12' tall x 22' deep. In hindsight, I would have gone 24' deep for a longer pontoon boat. Our first boat was a Yamaha AR192 jet boat. It was only 19' long. We recently purchased a 20' pontoon (which is actually 21'6" with the engine). TIP: It fits perfect, but you get into more options in longer pontoon boats. We went 12' high on the boat house to give plenty of room for water fluctuations & leaving the bimini up. Several on the lake had commented they wished they had gone higher..so we did.
While setting our goals for the boat dock, our #1 was as low maintenance as possible. I started my research on affordable marine grade deck boards. TIP: I learned that many composite boards actually do have wood in them. Hence why they still get mold. I found several that offered marine grade - no wood composite. My favorite was www.lumberock.com/decking for the price, quality, wood grain look and free shipping if you ordered a certain amount (which we met). We went for the Grey groove/groove boards with hidden fasteners for the surface, and ordered the 1/10 board for facia. The customer service, shipping and end quality was great. We are very satisfied with the product two years later! We power wash it 1x a year and it looks great! We have had to do some repair on poorly installed boards, but that was contractor error, not product related
We love to kayak our small lake. While rowing along, we like to check out all the docks & homes. We decided we liked the look and sustainability of the metal boat houses. Now, finding a carport company to put one on a boat slip....that was a different story. We finally found one that would do it for a $200 up charge. www.randbmetalstructures.com is who we used. We chose the strongest frame, and grey metal with white trim. They had it up in 3 hours! Welcome to your new home "Happy Place"...our boats name. The total cost was approx. $2000 for the boat port (instead of car port hahaha).
Two last projects before the house began, was a 45' x 2' seawall and cutting down stumps in the water. Our builder recommended putting the wall up quickly so he could move some dirt to that area. So in mid July, a great friend from church helped put up this wall in 96F degree weather. Bad news, the builder never moved the dirt....but hey, we had a great sea wall.... One of my best friends and co-workers selling pharma came to the rescue on cutting down stumps sticking out of the water. with the lake lowered 4', it was a great chance to eliminate some boating hazards!! Thanks Dougie Fresh! You're the best ❤️....Sorry you fell in! 😳
We did end up adding a shed to the boat dock, but that was put in during our landscaping projects a year later, which we will show you later on 😜
Comments