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Building a virtual cottage and repairing my childhood

Post #: 315
Post type: Blog post
Date: 2025-10-17 22:19:25.000
Author: Jeremy Reimer
Tags: Valheim, gaming, Keats

In my post about my year in Valheim, I had one section that I always felt strangely bad about:

“At first I labelled many of my cottages in Valheim as Keats, but finally settled on just one that was on its own small island. But I didn’t end up spending a lot of time there. Hanging out in the virtual Keats didn’t feel like the real one. Some memories have to remain just memories.”

Why did that make me feel bad? To answer that, we have to travel back in time.

Many years ago, my great-grandmother Gladys MacLean (pictured above, center) and her husband bought a small parcel of land on Keats Island. On this beachfront property, my great-grandfather built a small white summer cottage. Because the property was mostly on a large outcropping of rock, he could build the cottage right on top of it, without a foundation.

This cottage became a precious memory for my mother, who remembered spending carefree days as a child exploring the beach and running up and down the island trails. And she was able to pass the cottage on to my sister and to myself, so it became a beloved part of my childhood as well. I remember scrambling down that enormous rock to explore the pebble-lined beach:

I remember the arbutus trees, the gorgeous smell of summer, and the day trips through the forest. I remember the silence, the taste of fresh huckleberries and blackberries, and the freedom to explore anywhere on the island that my feet could take me.

Here’s a picture of me, the little blonde kid, on the main deck at our Keats cottage. My sister is sitting on the large deck chair in front of me. Other relatives are hanging out around us. You can see the start of the fenced-off path in the upper-right of the frame.

The cottage was quite old by this time, and in dire need of repair. One room was starting to slope dangerously, and we were banished from one of the decks overlooking the beach. Some of the rooms, including one my mother had slept in as a child, were now inaccessible.

So my father drew up plans for a complete refit of the cottage. He even built multiple balsa wood models of the new house. For years we dreamed of what it might become. But the logistics and expense of bringing all the required materials to the island were too much to overcome. Then came the recession of 1982. My dad lost his job, and our family lost its financial stability. The plans to rebuild the cottage were put on hold indefinitely.

Money was tight. My mother got a job, saving us from utter poverty, but it wasn’t enough. So, reluctantly, she arranged for the sale of our Keats lot to our immediate neighbors, the multi-millionaire Bentall family. They gave us a good price. For them, it was a way to expand their property boundaries. For us, it was a way to survive.

They didn’t rebuild our cottage. Instead, they pushed it into the sea.

Looking through binoculars from across the narrow inlet, I could see the bare patch of rock staring back at me. It was an aching hole in my heart. For years I dreamed of buying a small patch of land on Keats Island and recreating, plank by plank, that dream that had been so cruelly taken from me. But as I slowly built up my savings, the price of land on that rocky isle increased beyond my means. It was never going to happen.

So, yeah, that’s why it hurt too much to build a new cottage on a virtual Keats in Valheim.

But lately, I’ve been trying to think of my childhood more as a beautiful gift that my parents gave me, and less of something that was taken from me before I was ready to let it go. My sun-dappled memories are still there, even if the cottage isn’t.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

So, I decided to go back to the Valheim forest biome that I had dubbed Keats Island. The first step was finding the right location. And there it was, an outcropping of rock, perfect for building a dream cottage. The pine trees in the forest provided the logs to build the superstructure, perched on top of the rock just like our old cottage was.

I built a long, fenced-off walkway to the rest of the island. Our old cottage had a similar structure. It was meant to keep out the wandering deer. And luckily there were deer in the forest biome, but there were also a bunch of enemies like the greydwarves, trolls, and now bears, who would easily decimate the deer population given half a chance.

So I went and disposed of all these dreadful creatures, while sparing the deer. To prevent the monsters from respawning, I dropped campfires all over the island. I love that Valheim has this feature! Now it’s just me and the deer on Keats, just like it always was.

Near the front door hangs a sign, “MAXHOLME”. The same sign was on our Keats cottage. The “Max” part stood for MacLean, and the “Holme” was Home. My mother had held on to this sign until her death, but unfortunately it was lost afterwards. Now it lives again.

Entering in, you can see the tools hanging on the wall, always at the ready for any needed repairs.

The dining room is the centerpiece of the new cottage. The table provides a great view of the water.

I built a lovely little kitchen here, next to the dining room. It’s always ready for me to whip up a delicious meal for myself or for guests.

In the living room, the centerpiece is the roaring fireplace. Two of the dangerous bears that once roamed this island now face each other and ponder about what they did.

Upstairs, the master bedroom has a nice troll trophy and a great view of the island. The closets are full, ready for a guest to change into something more comfortable.

My great-grandmother had a lovely antique Singer sewing machine, so this room is home to the Valheim equivalent.

Finally, after a long day of relaxing on the island, it’s time to enjoy the sunset on the expansive deck.

So that’s my new beautiful Keats Cottage! I feel good about what I’ve built here. As I ease into an uncertain future, it’s nice to have something to feel proud of. Mostly, I’m happy to finally be at peace about my time on the real Keats Island. Now I can look at the small collection of beach pebbles and the tiny piece of wood I saved from the old cottage, and enjoy them as beautiful treasures.

Life will always be unpredictable. Sometimes we get thrown around between our triumphs and our tragedies like tiny dinghies on a rough ocean. But even after a loss, we can be thankful for the things we had, the people who meant so much to us, and for our happiest memories. These things can never be taken from us.