 Putting in new electrical and water lines was way more work than I anticipated!  Getting that sheetrock up!   As always, a lot of little things come up when you're building that delay your process. We had to install a chase way to cover our drain pipes that were installed under the second floor joists because of the pitch. And I think I'm good on installing insulation for the next 20 years. I did all of the insulation alone, in the heat, which is just a miserable, but necessary part of the process!    It was awesome to have the camp available to stay in while we built the garage. The kids were so little when we built the camp, and we were sleeping mostly in tents so they missed most of the building process. We put them to work this time around and it's been great to involve them in the process!  The original front window was only supposed to be 6 feet in width and wasn't going to open. There was a mixup in the ordering process, and we instead got shipped a 10 foot window, which included a 6 foot fixed window in the middle with two side windows that you can open and close. We decided to keep the 10 foot window, so we had to undo some framing and build up our header. It took 5 grown men to get this window unit upstairs. We had to cut out studs from our stairwell just to get it up the stairs. It was so heavy. I'll include a picture of it installed later... we're so happy that we went with it. It's a great window to see all of the property and the deer grazing in the winter time. It really makes the living room space!  The garage doors with a stained look and a little extra insulation round out the look!  A little sneak peek of that picture window!  We went with the same siding as the camp to keep a uniform look. This LP Smartside goes on so easily. All we have left to do in the Spring of '26 is to finish the siding on the front side, and put up all of the black trim. There were these white and black caterpillars all over the side of the garage for several weeks in August.  Prepping the utility closet for the propane wall hung boiler. One of the biggest regrets was not putting sheetrock up on the bottom of the stairs before the plumber roughed in the pipes. It's been a pain working around them as we need to have sheet rock up to meet code due to the living space upstairs! Lessons learned....    We used so much v-match. You get good at installing it, but between the ceiling and walls it was just a lot! Here you can see the ceiling is done with the bedrooms framed out.  I built a hatch door for the attic access after spending the day doing the blown in insulation. Hopefully I'll never need to get up there!   A short break for hunting season. I anticipated getting some work done while up there for hunting, but we were just too tired from tracking all day. I got my buck from last year back (8 point 185#). On the right is Nate's 8 pointer from the same day last year, and the left side is Marc's deer from the previous year. We have decided to keep all Rangeley bucks mounted at camp! No bucks for us in 2025 unfortunately!   I was lucky to find a great tile guy to do the bathroom floor and the shower. He did beautiful work, and I'm more than happy to hire out folks who do great quality work... because God knows I wouldn't have done nearly as good a job as he did!
Thanks for following along! My next blog post will be a finished product hopefully some time here in March of '26. Come fish with me this year or in the future and experience our little slice of heaven! The goal from my buddy Nate and his crew was to frame, sheath, roof, and install windows in 8 days. I felt fortunate to be able to join them for most of this part of the process, and we were actually able to finish in 7 days! The crew consisted of my friend Nate, his brother Tommy, son Jackson (17 years old), Jared, and Faith. A huge thank you to them for showing me so many new things and helping us add on to our dream property. What a week it was... up early, work until around 4 PM then hit the river or pond most evenings to decompress. We had a few days reach around 100 degrees in late June, which is very rare, so cooling off with wet wading sessions nightly was a necessity. Below are some pics from this part of the process!          In 2020 before the world went crazy, we broke ground on our Trout Camp build. My uncle and I constructed the 950 sq ft camp for family, friends and clients to enjoy. Over the past 5 years, I've been lucky to host many people and their families on fishing trips around the Rangeley Region, all while having the benefit of getting an authentic Maine experience of staying at our camp. Many great memories have been made and we're looking forward to many more in the future. My wife comes from a very large family, so in 2024 we decided to put some plans together to clear out and build a garage on our Trout Camp property to expand some storage space, and add a space upstairs that has 2 extra bedrooms with a full bathroom and some extra living space. It really started as a drawing on a piece of scrap paper during hunting camp, but by January 2025 our plans were turned into CAD plans and the build was scheduled to start in the spring. We had an incredible experience with a local excavator, electrician and plumber from the original camp build, and we were lucky to secure them for our Camp Garage project. By late May, we had a concrete, insulated slab poured for the foundation. In June, my good friend from Vermont and his crew of 4 carpenters were going to come up to frame, sheath, roof, and install windows in just 8 days. Here are some pictures below of the foundation process!    |
AuthorAaron Broaddus is a passionate fly fisherman and a Maine guide. Archives
February 2026
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Headin' North just always feels right