For new readers and those who request to be “好友 good friends” please read my 公告栏 first

During 1957 summer vacation in our neighboring state NH, our family by accident came among a small vacation home development on Lower Beech Pond in the township of Tuftonboro. The developer did not have ambitious plans and was only interested in a quick profit. He agreed to sell us a water front lot with no water system hook up ( for the first few years we drank lake water which is pristine clean and spring fed). There was electricity but no telephone connection for the first 18 years. A local builder erected a house shell with roof, outside wall, and minimal plumbing connections. My wife and I with a 6 year old boy and a 5 year old girl in tow started to live in saw dust and cocking out of a small electric pan to begin finishing the inside of the vacation home ( a 24 ft by 24ft cottage with a two bedroom sleeping lofts designed by our architect friend, Paul Sun.) We knew next to nothing about carpentry, electrical wiring, and plumbing. However, with brave hearts and books, we gradually through trial-and- error acquired all kinds of do-it-yourself (DIY) knowledge about building a livable home. One major advantage of a vacation cabin is that you can take your time finishing it and correcting any mistakes. There is never an emergency even though there can be challenges during constructions. Over a period of 52 years, we have enlarged the house (again by our architect friend, Paul), decorated it, and improved it.  It is truly 一磚一瓦 一針一綫. Without boasting, our vacation home has really became our own masterpiece. We have received unsolicited offers from visiting friends to buy the house in case we ever wanted to sell. But our children who had fabulous memories of growing up with the home say it will be over their dead bodies since they fully expect to inherit this family treasure. Environmentally, we also lucked out. Our left door neighbor has their house way behind on the shoreline which we never see as we look out on the lake. Our right door neighbor is a rich person from a State far away from NH and is seldom here. But his house sits on four adjourning pieces of water front lots (with the result we do not see any other house include his near us through the thick vegetation). Across the lake, we look onto undeveloped shoreline under local ownership that remained pristine in 50+ years. Thus literally we seems to be in a 世外桃园 and our own Shangri-la but with all the modern conveniences. The house now has four sleeping rooms, two baths, a sauna, plus living area, kitchen, and a fireplace. The inside walls every piece of furniture, accessories, paintings, and decorations were either assembled, finished, or handmade by my wife and I with labor of love or given to us by our artist friends.

I may have missed the 60 fold increase in the value of Apple stock by selling my holding too early (http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-909246.html ). But we more than made up with the appreciation of the value of this water front self-made vacation home which were acquired with little cost but effort and sweat  http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-15214.html   (as the most recent property assessment by the local town proves it.)

Attached is a video made by our younger daughter about the town and the surroundings of our vacation home (unfortunately after I finished uploading this videop clip, it is nowhere to be found. I am asking ScienceNet to help locating it).

Unfortunately, I was just informed that ScienceNet limit any attachment to an article to less than 8 megabytes which is the reason that my video did not upload successfully.