The Dock!

What’s a lake house without a dock, right?

Almost all the houses we looked at already had docks, which can be good because the ones you need on this lake are expensive, but bad because you get stuck with someone else’s idea of what kind of dock is useful.

The water off the front of our property is more than 60 feet deep, so traditional docks are out. Here they have to float and the docks become part of the landscape – the water doesn’t freeze, so they are permanently moored by cables to the shore, and the cables are made tighter or looser as the lake levels fluctuate (Alabama Power operates the dam and lake levels. They do not, however, operate our electricity, which cracks us up).

So we spent last fall agonizing over the new dock – one slip or two? what color roof? what shape roof? what color decking? Archways? dockbox? how big should the swim deck be? etc. etc. etc. They fabricated it over the winter and waited for our return to deliver and install it.

What follows are pictures of the big day… (click the pictures to embiggen them)

Off in the distance, we spotted a dock being pushed around the point and headed for our house…

It’s here! The dock is here!

At this point the dock was tied to our shore side trees and left to pivot while they did the final work on it (fixed pillars and decking that couldn’t handle the rolling and waves of the crossing).

Then the dock was moved into position so the cables could be connected on each side and the underwater ballast anchors could be set (those help keep the dock from catching wind on the underside of the roof and flipping back over itself).