The Petite Retreat: Lyndsay x Mike

Hey all! I recently sat down and chatted with Lyndsay M, a DEN fan and our first interviewee who built in Canada! Woohoo! Hope y'all enjoy listening to this one.

You can find Lyndsay's DEN's Airbnb here, as well as her DEN's IG @petite.retreat.cabin

 1. Finding the Land: Budget, Water, and a Bit of Luck

Mike: Hello, here we are at another DEN podcast interview. We're joined by Lyndsay. Let's start with some quick background, right? Who are you? Where do you live full time? Where did you build your DEN, and which design did you build? 

Lyndsay: Hi, I am Lyndsay. I live full-time in Toronto, Canada, Ontario. I built my DEN about two and a half hours east of Toronto, in a little area called Marmora which is out in the country, on the river. it's gorgeous. And I built the Barnhouse Retreat, the two bedroom with a few modifications.

In my opinion for me and what I was looking for, it's the perfect size. It's just like a really easy to manage project, and it just ended up working out perfectly. 

Mike: Amazing. Amazing. And yeah, tell us a little bit about that region, right? When you acquired the property, like what about that area and like this specific parcel that you bought, like really attracted you to that place?

Lyndsay: So when I decided I wanted to do this and I knew I was going to like, buy some vacant land and build something from scratch in Ontario, there's a few really, I guess prime real estate locations for, you know, if you're looking to build like a cottage or a vacation property, the main one would be Muskoka, which I feel like even in the US a lot of people have heard of it. And so that has gotten so outrageously expensive. It's impossible to buy land or even an already built property there, at least for the budget I was working in. So I knew I wasn't going north. That area is north of Toronto. Then east of Toronto, there's another area called Prince Edward County.

That is, over the last, I would say like 10 years, has really ramped up and become this sort of cool kind of like hipster weekend vacation whatever area. And so since that's gotten so popular, the land value there is also insane. So of the two sort of options for prime especially rental locations, I knew I was already out of the market there in terms of my budget.

So I just started looking all in between everywhere. I looked west of Toronto, I looked east of Toronto. My only main criteria that I really, really wanted was, I wanted some form of water. Also in Ontario, if you wanna be on a lake, that's also gonna be super prime real estate no matter where you are in the province.

The pricing here I feel like is a little bit more expensive. I mean, I'm sure there's also a lot of like really expensive areas in the US but from what I know, like, just looking at similar listings in like upstate New York and different areas, the land value in the US, you do seem to be able to get more land for less than what you would get in Ontario.

So yeah, really nice prime land with any type of water is super expensive and, hard to come by here. So I knew already, I also probably wasn't gonna get a lake, so I was aiming for a river, like a tiny stream. Some - 

Mike: - Sounds, sounds, lovely 

Lyndsay: - little element. I wanted to just like, wake up and go outside and be able to hear like a bubbling creek or something.

That was my main criteria. 

Mike: Nice. 

Lyndsay: And I wanted it to be sort of private, a little bit secluded, not right in a city with neighbors really close by. I wanted to be like out in the country. So that was my criteria when I was looking for properties. And I got really lucky my whole process, I have to say...

It was a long process. I bought the land very end of 2020, and I finished building last August, 2024. The build itself really didn't start happening until probably like November, December, 2023. So a lot of other stuff happened before the build happened.

But I got really lucky. I found the land really quickly. I had only looked at a few parcels. Nothing felt right. Again, there wasn't really anything popping up that had water in my price range, and I stumbled across this magical little lot. I still like, can't believe I got lucky enough to find it.

Lyndsay: And it was the steal in terms of Ontario pricing. And I scooped it up. I think I put an offer in the same day I saw it. So yeah, I got really lucky. And I think one of the reasons is just because I didn't have, like I wasn't pigeonholing myself in terms of the area I wanted to be in.

I was really open to it being anywhere within two to three hours of Toronto in any direction. 

2. Why the Barnhouse Retreat Was the Perfect Fit

Mike: Cool. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Mike: So nice, so happy with the parcel. yeah. You know, once you targeted exactly what you wanted, it actually turned up for you pretty quickly. 

Lyndsay: I got very lucky.

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: I feel like it was just like, meant to be. 

Mike: Amazing. Amazing. Cool. And you said that you ultimately pursued the Barnhouse Retreat, right? 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Mike: Awesome. Tell us a little bit about like what attracted you to that design in the first place? Why did you pursue that one?

Lyndsay: What I loved most about all your designs is just the really clean, simple lines. It's such a beautiful, it's a stylish - sorry, I don't know if you can hear my dog in the background. We had a deal that he was not gonna lick his butt during this interview. He is like not sticking to the deal and I'm, I'm so hoping that doesn't come through.

Mike: No, no, no, no. That's totally cool. With your permission, we'd love to just put that in the podcast interview because, I have a dog too over here. Uh, and it occasionally licks its butt as well. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. I had like a hardcore sit down with him this morning and I was like, I'm gonna need you to not lick your butt during this. Because it's like this thing he does whenever I'm in a meeting and I'm like - 

Mike: - Yeah, yeah. 

Lyndsay: [To dog] Can you just cool it? 

[the dog in question, Homer, pictured below]

Mike: I also have a four and 6-year-old children. 

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh! 

Mike: Yes. I constantly am asking them to not lick their butts, the 6-year-old is like a little more amenable to it.

Yeah. More amenable to it than the 4-year-old. The 4-year-old [will] just do it whenever she wants, so yeah. Well, cool. Cool. 

Lyndsay: Gotta go for it sometimes. 

Mike: So, Barnhouse Retreat, clean lines. 

Lyndsay: Yeah, all of your designs, like, they're just such a good, like a foundational blank canvas that also feels really stylish. Like it doesn't feel just like, even though you are you know, selling the plans, I don't wanna say you're like mass producing them, but you have the plan and anyone can buy it, it doesn't feel like a cookie cutter, builder grade, plan or house. And so, yeah, I just loved like the clean, it just has that sort of Scandinavian vibe that I was going for.

When I first sort of decided I wanted to build something, I love, like tiny little... my dream would be a little like hobbit house in the woods. And actually I've been following you guys for forever. I think it was before you were even called DEN and you had the little, I think it was started with a 'W' It was like- 

Mike: Oh wow, holy smokes.

Lyndsay: Like Willard or something? Like for ages, I've been following you guys. It's always been on my radar and I loved those little like prefab kits that you had for those little tiny houses? 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is like an OG DEN reference, right. For people listening in to this right now, the full story is that... so like, I used to work for WeWork, right.

And I started a side project while I was working as an executive at WeWork. After like building a cabin in the woods. And I was like, 'oh man, that was like hard.' And it was like hard to like get the right design and like let me like float something out there. And in the early days I was like, well, you know, I've got like a revenue goal, I'm gonna try to achieve like $1,000 month in extra revenue if I could like pay half of my rent, like that would be amazing. Like, you know, side project well executed, right. 

And at the time I called it Meet Walden. So like the W - 

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh, yes! 

Mike: Yeah. That you're thinking about is from this name called Meet Walden, which was the market test for what would become DEN. Right. Like I spent a year, learning about, you know, the customer and the market and we had like several versions of our website even before we even started to like, get a single sale. I remember when I got like the first sale, I was like, holy shit, it's working. You know? 

And that's what actually like helped set the stage for DEN's success, right? Because like we launched DEN like in the start of the pandemic, right? But it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like this was like, thought up in some like venture studio, think tank, right?

There was like a home built and then a year's worth of like in-market research, right? Like, I was like ducking out to conference rooms at the office to like take a quick customer call, and like all of that, like created this like perfect storm, like right time, you know? Right amount of background, right. Like the appropriate amount of readiness to like achieve very fast product market fit, right. 

Lyndsay: Yeah, for sure. 

Mike: Yeah. And that's what it, you know, that's what it was. So it's like crazy also to like encounter someone who's like, been with us for that entire journey, because it's been like five years, Lyndsay. We've known each other for like five years. Yeah. Wow! 

Lyndsay: It's this weird connection and it's crazy. I had like images of those little houses, like saved on, this was before I even thought that this would be something I would do in the next 10 or 15 years.

It was like a subconscious thought of like, 'oh, wouldn't it be cool one day to have a little thing somewhere?' 

Mike: Yeah. Amazing. 

Lyndsay: Like out in the woods. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: And I still have like those images saved on like, you know, an inspo board somewhere. 

Mike: Yeah. Five years ago I was still in my thirties, Lyndsay. 

Lyndsay: Me too. Yeah, me too.

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. 

Lyndsay: It was another lifetime. Yeah. It was another, yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. Cool. 

Lyndsay: So. Yeah, I loved the idea when you guys really started ramping up. It just felt very organic to like follow through on that journey. And it was just where I ended up with my plan, it just felt like it fit perfectly into my plans.

And I was like, yeah, I've been following along with this company forever. So it just feels cool and right. And what a cool connection. 

Mike: Awesome. And the Barnhouse Retreat also has that like smaller bedroom that has like bunk beds. Did you, did you opt for the bunk beds or a single twin bed?

3. Design Tweaks: Bunk Beds, French Doors, and River Views

Lyndsay: So I did not opt for the bunk beds. I did love the bunk beds.

Mike: Mm-hmm. 

Lyndsay: So I made a few revisions, which is also why I wanted to end up going with your plans. It's so easy once you have them to, like, when I purchased, I don't know if the model has shifted at all.

Because I purchased years ago, like before I started building. so I opted for the one that came with like all of the like architectural files so that I could just hand it over to like a builder, an engineer, any little revisions I wanted to make could be made really easily, which... that ended up happening.

And so I did shift... I switched it slightly, so I made the bedrooms the same size, so I moved one of the bedroom walls over, so there is like a master bed and then a guest bed, but they're both equal sizes. And I actually turned the room that had the bunk beds -based on just the landscape on the property- that ended up becoming the master bedroom.

And I did like walk out French doors in that room, which goes out -

Mike: - Nice. 

Lyndsay: - [towards the] river. And then the other bedroom ended up doing two XL twins not in bunk bed form, which since I mentioned to a few friends that the plan did come with bunk beds, they were a little disappointed that I didn't keep the bunk beds.

Mike: Bunk beds are so whimsical!

Lyndsay: But I thought, if my parents come to visit, they're not gonna wanna sleep in bunk beds. 

Mike: Right, right, right. 

Lyndsay: So I did twin XL side by side that, if you wanna push 'em together and make a big bed, you can. But if you have friends or family or whatever, everybody gets their own bed.

Mike: Nice, nice. So as you've mentioned, right, like you are, you're Canadian, and you live in Canada and you've built this in Canada. We have like, we have a bunch of customers in Canada, and like everyone asks like, 'well, you know, can do these work in Canada?'

And we're like, 'yeah. Like the same process applies. Like you get the plans, you get the, you know, you get the CAD files and like you take them to a local engineer and like work with them to localize it'. 

And like we did this interview a few weeks ago with a couple that had built in British Columbia and they were like they've gotta deal with like seismic issues. Like a ton of more stuff than you do, in the northeast region. Right? So yeah, tell us a little bit about that process. Like, how did you find the engineer? How did you find working with them? How did the localization process go?

Is there anything that you know, particularly stuck out for you, good or bad? Right? Like, give us a little texture there. 

4. Building in Canada: Localization, Engineers, and Cost-Saving Tips

Lyndsay: Yeah, so I ended up finding my contractor. I tried to use all local trades. That was something that was really important to me and also just makes the process easier.

And outside of Toronto, I do have friends that have built cottages or bought cottages outside of the city that did renos and, wanted to use, like a fancy architect that they loved from Toronto. And like the cost is just so much more for so many reasons when you do that. And so I wanted to use local to the area I was building in.

Also, like the cost to use local, in these smaller towns is significantly cheaper than using, contractors, builders, architects, engineers from Toronto. So yeah, I ended up finding my contractor. Which also was a really easy process. I got really lucky with I think the contractor I did find.

He is phenomenal, amazing. I would recommend him to anybody building in the area. But because I had the plans ready to go, I was able to send them out to a few different contractors to get quotes. I ended up going with my contractor. He was the only one that actually came out to the site, spent a few hours with me asking questions so that he could give me like a really accurate quote, which we were able to do.

Most of the reason was because I had the plans like. I told him the exact revisions I wanted to make. And then he had, like an engineer and an architect that he would use for projects. So he just sent the plans off to them to be adjusted. So the cost on that was also, really, really affordable. The other thing, I mean, I always thought, 'oh, I'll just do like a pre-made plan for the first house I build, and then I'll get all these ideas and inspiration and I'll have all this experience and then I can like design something from scratch'. But it's so much more expensive and for me, I'm very indecisive and I love... and am inspired by so many different things and different looks and different elements.

And like my inspo board for this cabin had so many different things in it. I thought, 'oh my gosh, I don't think I can be trusted to design something from scratch and keep it in my budget'. And it just ended up being such a smooth process and I'm so happy with like the look of the final house, that I would absolutely, I don't even think I wanna design from scratch if I ever do this again, like I would totally go back and buy like another DEN model. 

5. Custom Design vs DEN Plans: A Budget Reality Check

Mike: Mm-hmm. 

Lyndsay: They just have such an amazing look to them. 

Mike: We also often hear that, right? There's two things that happen, right?

Like one is like: someone just comes to us and they're like, 'cool, really love the starting point, right? And like, it helps me focus the vision, right? Tremendously, right?' and then the alternative story that we hear often is: 'I tried to do a custom house'. I just did this interview with these customers yesterday and they said that they effectively like blew through $20,000 worth of like design development 

Lyndsay: Yes.

Mike: To get to like a design that was like wildly over budget before they had put their first shovel in the ground, and then they were like, 'oh man. Like we nearly abandoned the project, nearly sold the property, and we were like'. You know, they were just like, 'fuck this, we're out'. Right?

And then they came to our site and they were like, 'oh, cool. We love these like, simple artistic plans. Let's start here'. And we effectively like recovered the whole thing, you know, for them. Yeah. And like, yeah. For like a fraction of the cost that they spent, you know, with their Yes. 

Lyndsay: A fraction. Yes. A fraction. Like people don't realize how expensive it is. Even if you're doing a small property, the thought I had going in was, 'oh, this whole thing is gonna be so cheap because I wanna build like a small house'. 

That is not the case. Like a lot of the costs in a small house remain the same, whether you're doing like a two bedroom or a four bedroom. It doesn't always work out that way. And one of those areas particularly is like designing with an architect, and working with an engineer. 

Even for a small property, you could be looking at minimum $10,000 and that's if you're not changing your mind and going through revisions. And the cost may be different also, like depending on where you are. 

Mike: Yeah. I mean that this is like, yeah, this is one of the original insights for DEN. You know, it's like I wanted to build like a black minimal box in the woods and like architects were quoting me like $20,000, $30,000 design services fees.

And I was like, 'guys, this is like, you know, this is a small building like, you know'. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah. And you don't realize it until you go through it. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: You just think, 'oh yeah, I'll just get designs'. And some people don't even factor that that's gonna be in their budget.

They're just thinking, 'okay, here's my budget for the build'. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: When you start out like purchasing the land, putting in the well, getting your things designed, it's a huge chunk of money. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: So anywhere you can save $10,000, $5,000, $20,000. It's good to do it if you can. And so, yeah, I was thrilled, like, absolutely thrilled at what it costs to get a fully finished set of plans that I could just hand over to a contractor.

Mike: Amazing! 

6. Minimal Plan Changes and Seamless Code Compliance

Lyndsay: Locally... so for Ontario, we didn't have to change much from what was on the plans, regarding building codes or anything like that. I think we adjusted... it was maybe something with the insulation and... I have so much information, but there's also so many little details that even though it was only a year ago, I'm like already getting foggy on them all.

We changed the foundation, but that wasn't a building code, that just had to do with the land and looking at the pros and cons of having like a full sort of... I call it a basement, it's not like a full basement, but having like a full foundation with like storage space under the house versus it being on pylons.

And yeah, I think I adjusted the insulation, which was more just for uh, efficiency purposes. I don't know that it was a building code. I actually don't think there was anything I had to adjust for building code. If it was, it was like a really simple thing that my contractor just, switched on the plants, no cost. 

So yeah, it really comes as like, in my opinion, just sort of like this nice clean slate that you can jump off of and, and build pretty much anywhere, I would say in North America. So yeah, in terms of that, there wasn't a lot I had to adjust. All of the revisions I made were just based on, personal preference of the floor plan. The overall floor plan I kept pretty much completely the same. I took out the second half bath, and like swapped the bathroom locations just because of where I was putting the master bedroom, the bunk room.

Um, and then that second half bath became like a washer dryer, entry closet, just storage space, because I, you know, for me and friends and family I was bringing up, I didn't mind just only having one bathroom in the house. And then it was just placement of doors and windows, which was all just based on the landscape of the lot that I purchased. Just making it work with that. So super, super easy changes that you know, hardly cost anything to provide. 

Mike: Amazing. Amazing. Presumably you've stayed, you've stayed in the house, a fair amount at this point.

7. Life at the Cabin: Favorite Spots and Magical Mornings

Lyndsay: I go up every chance I get. The first few months after it was done, I thought I would rent it out right away to sort of capitalize on August, September, October bookings.

But I just loved it so much and it turned out so much better than I was even expecting that I wanted to like, have it for myself for a few months. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: And just make it home first. 

Mike: Hell yeah. 

Lyndsay: So yeah, I spent a ton of time up there. I love it. Absolutely love it. 

Mike: Okay. What is your favorite place in the house then?

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh. Okay. My favorite place in the house is... so again, I kept the floor plan pretty much, as per the original plan. So the main room is like open concept, kitchen, living room, and I put in a wood stove, I have this little sort of lounge chair that's sort of beside the wood stove, and it gets the most amazing morning light that comes through like the French doors that I put in. It walks out down to the river, and so mornings, like crispy mornings beside that wood stove with the sun coming in, like I cannot imagine a better place to be. That's like my favorite place in the entire house. 

Mike: That's awesome. That's awesome. 

Lyndsay: Yeah, I love it.

Mike: Okay, cool. Let's talk a little bit about the construction process, right? What was your favorite part of building or favorite moment or moments within the construction process? What was the part that stressed you out the most? So, top one, bottom one, 

8. Permits, Bedrock, and the Best Kind of Construction Experience

Lyndsay: Okay, this is gonna be a hard question.

Okay. I'm gonna start bottom because I actually don't have, I wanna say this is probably not the norm for people doing any type of builder renovation, and I think it's probably due to my contractor. You do hear horror stories sometimes about construction going wrong and, you know, not-so-great contractors.

And I just got so lucky with the whole process, and I connected with this contractor and he's just like such an amazing man. And he helped me out so much with everything. And I have to say like there was not... there wasn't anything bad that happened during construction. Like there wasn't anything that stressed me out. There wasn't anything that went over budget it. 

I feel like it's like it never happens. It's unheard of. But if I had to pick, I would say, I wouldn't even say it was during the construction, the most stressful part [was] pre-construction. 

So I knew I was gonna have to do a bunch of pre-construction surveys and reporting and all the sort of stuff that you have to submit ahead of your permits.

And so one of the things I learned that did sort of stress me out, only because I was a little bit scared that we would hit a lot of hiccups was, in Ontario - and it's probably different depending on where you're building - so because I was building on the water, I basically had to go through the whole permitting process twice.

I had to go through the local conservation authority, because everything had to be resurveyed to get updated. High watermarks. You know, the building envelope had to be adjusted a few times to make sure that I was following all the bylaws in terms of the setback from the river and the setback from the road.

My lot that I purchased... I got lucky because the main building area, when you drive into the lot, it's sort of this already naturally cleared area. So I also didn't really have to envision... a lot of times when you're buying vacant land, it's like a fully wooded area.

You have to envision, like where you're gonna clear out the trees, where your entryway is gonna be and all that kind of stuff. And this property had this natural opening right in the middle of the lot that was sort of surrounded by trees and then the river on one side and the cleared area was this sort of all exposed areas of these really cool like rocky outcrops and like bedrock, which was also, I thought so, so cool, in terms of building and how that was gonna like play in with the house and the landscaping.

And I had all of these ideas, but because of that, I also had to get geotechnical surveys. That came back okay. But there was areas in the bedrock where they had identified like little holes or cracks, so I had to get a secondary survey and a Karst report done to make sure that there wasn't any major areas of like big rocky caves under the surface that were gonna collapse if we built on it and that kind of stuff. And all of that took, each survey and each report that we had to do, for the environmental aspect took, months at a time.

So that sort of first few years was really just a series of going through one by one, going to the next one. So I got really lucky that everything ended up working out. Really great. 

Mike: Mm-hmm. 

Lyndsay: And I got approved and all of that. But the process of at each stage thinking, okay, this one might come back and say no, and then I have to go back and think about, is there a second building envelope on the property?

It's pretty small. It's a pretty narrow piece of land. 

Mike: Yep. 

Lyndsay: So in terms of building, it was a little bit limited on where exactly - 

Mike: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: - the house fits. So I would say that was the most stressful part, just going through each one of those reports and waiting for the answer. 

Mike: Mm-hmm. 

Lyndsay: And the top moment from construction.

I mean, honestly, I think just like the finished product. The whole thing was exciting. I would get updates, you know, every few weeks. My contractor would send me photos. I wasn't able to be on site all the time because I was about two, two and a half hours away. So I would try to go up every couple weekends and check it out if I wasn't busy.

But he was constantly sending me photos of the progress. I think the most exciting one was probably when the framing and then the outside covering that goes underneath the siding when went in and the roof went on and it was, that was the first time I saw it as a house shaped.

Like you could walk in it, it had a doorway, you could walk in, there was a roof, there were walls. That I think was the most exciting part. 'Cause up to then, it was still hard to visualize what it was gonna look like and, you know, where the pathways would be and what the landscaping would look like.

And once it was house shaped and on the foundation, uh, yeah. That was a really exciting moment. 

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Okay, well, I have one last question here. So if you had a friend that was endeavoring to do this, with a set of DEN plans, what advice would you give them? 

Lyndsay: Oh, ooh, that's a good question too.

I would say really, do your research, get multiple quotes, be prepared to go over budget. I don't even wanna say be prepared to go over budget. Oh my God. I don't know what my advice would be! Okay. Let me think. 

My advice would be that the plans on their own are so... you guys have thoughtfully put so much time and effort into making such a wide range of plans. Like I think there's somebody for everybody and they're so thought out in terms of floor plan and efficiency and all of that. I would say, make minimal changes.

There's not a lot of stuff you have to change. It's such a good foundation plan. And I would say just be prepared for that to be the easiest part. Buying your plans, picking your plans, getting your plans, and just be patient. Everything is gonna take a little bit longer than you think.

Hopefully if you have the willpower, you can avoid going over budget. Do your research on your plots of land. Just do your research on zoning and the area and things like that before you buy so you sort of know what you're getting into.

But, yeah, honestly, in terms of the actual DEN portion, I don't have a lot of advice. That's probably gonna be the easiest part of your journey.

Mike: Awesome. Well, before we jump, do you wanna plug the short term rental? What's it called?

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Mike: How do you find it? Let us know how folks can find this majestic building that you built.

Lyndsay: Yes. So right now it's posted on Airbnb. I think I'm also probably gonna be listing it on VRBO. The name, I feel like I've gone through a few names. My Instagram name that I have for the account, Moira River Cabin [this has since changed, new name at top of interview - @petite.retreat.cabin]. It's gone through a few iterations. As I was building it, I had adopted my dog, around the same time we started building. So I also, for a while was calling it 'Homer's house', 'cause Homer's his name. And he sort of took it over and I was like, 'I'm building this house for you bud'. And for a while I was calling it the babe cave because it was just me and my girlfriends, like just envisioning all the fun weekends we were gonna have up there, you know, drinking wine and doing whatever.

And as of right now it's called, Moira River Cabin. It's on the Moira River in Marmora. 

Mike: Nice. I'm looking at the Instagram account right now. 

Lyndsay: Are you? Okay, good. It also used to be called Lyndsay's Little House when I first started, 'cause I just didn't know what to call it. And it was my little house.

Mike: I mean, you, you crushed it on this project. 

The tiling is amazing. The fireplace with the tiled like pedestal is like amazing. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. I had a few like key visions that I really sort of had to... not talk my contractor into, he was happy to do whatever I wanted, but he wanted to walk me through based on his experience and suggestions, like where I might run into issues with whatever my vision was.

And so it was really great to talk that out with him. But there were a few things that I think he couldn't visualize. I was like, 'yeah, we need this like tile thing, like a box, like a bench, and then the fireplace is gonna go on it'. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. 

Lyndsay: And he's like, 'okay. Like, I don't understand the purpose of it. We can do it. That fireplace is gonna be way too small for your house'. And I was like, 'Nope. This is the fireplace for me. This is the one I want'. 

Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Lyndsay: He tried to talk me out of it. 

Mike: Hey, look - 

Lyndsay: That fireplace. I don't know if you have like a Morsø, or if you've, um...

Mike: I do, I have a, I have a Morsø 6148 and the thing that you've chosen here - also, I feel like, like Canadians really like know their wood stove[s], fireplace[s]. 

Lyndsay: We know our wood stoves. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. 

Lyndsay: We love fire. 

We love a fireplace. 

Mike: The installation of the stove pipe is like perfect. It's like -

Lyndsay: I had such a good... I got so lucky with all my trades.

I want more friends in the area. So I'm like, 'guys, this is like a hidden gem. The trades are amazing. The area is amazing. Like land is relatively cheap. Like you gotta move up here.' But yeah, the fireplace installer was, he was so amazing, he was just a young guy.

But he was so good and so thorough. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, and it's like geometrically like flawless, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Lyndsay: It's like it was exactly my vision. Yeah. They executed it. And I cannot tell you that fireplace, if I don't have the heat on, it still heats the whole house. 

Mike: Oh, for sure. For sure.

Lyndsay: Like if I had gone with a bigger one, I would be dying. 

Mike: You'd have a sauna. You'd have like a - 

Lyndsay: - Yeah, it would be a sauna. It would be a sauna. So it was perfect. They're such good stoves. They're so efficient. Like I can't rec, it's, they're a little bit more expensive than, you know, just like your...

Basic wood stoves, but I highly, highly recommend going for it. It's totally worth it.

Mike: Awesome. Yeah. Well, from Canada with love, you know, perfectly installed wood stoves and all. Lyndsay, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Lyndsay: Thanks Mike. 

Mike: On behalf of the whole DEN team, thanks for spending some time with us.

Amazing job on the build. Um, and yeah, thanks again. 

Lyndsay: Yeah, thank you. It was great to chat. 

Mike: Awesome.