Spent another great weekend at the Russian River Dacha. This month marks our 5th year anniversary at our little redwood log cabin. We are still as excited to spend our leisure time here as we when we first purchased the place in 2011.
The decor has evolved with additional layers of wall art and bibelots.
It's always a mental struggle for all of us to return home from here. The Dacha just magically imbues a great sense of calm in our family. It always warms our hearts when our son Daniel expresses how much he loves coming to the Dacha. I envision him growing up here and returning back to the Dacha with his friends as a young adult and sharing his childhood memories with them.
2 1/2 years ago we were contacted by FEMA informing us that due to our close proximity to the Russian river and the increase of floods in the area, our mandated flood insurance rates would be drastically increasing. In fact, in the last 2 years, our annual rate has tripled. In years past, FEMA has always subsidized insurance rates for this river town. However, the rising costs of natural disasters relief support due to increased occurrences has created a financial hardship on FEMA. It is why it announced that it can no longer continue. Because the Dacha is not our primary home, we were subjected to the maximum rate increase. Unfortunate news for us but we completely understood.
Our only alternative is to raise the entire cabin a minimum of 4 feet. The project will be costly. We lingered over the decision on whether to sell the cabin and seek another outside of the flood zone, or invest the money and go up. After much deliberating, and sad eyes from our little guy who wants to keep it, we decided to pursue the lift.
So now in the search for a contractor begins.
This is a current photo of the dated but functional kitchen. I am looking forward to the remodel. Our contractor that worked on all of the other Dacha renovations advised that we hold off on the kitchen remodel until the cabin has been raised to avoid damage to remodel counter tops, flooring, etc.
The main part of the remodel that I look forward to is removing the low ceilings in the bedrooms and kitchen to expose the height of the cabin's arched roof top.
The bathroom underwent a priority budget renovation just so that we could start to stay at the Dacha as it was unusable(no working sink,toilet,shower and huge hole in the floor)at the time we purchased the property.
Thank you for visiting and please stay tuned for more updates to come!
