Building our house was a nightmare but well worth it now. We had to excavate about 400 to 500 dump truck loads to dig into the hill and riverbank. Here is a picture of the dock and the house.[ATTACH=CONFIG]520269[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]520270[/ATTACH]

Chris, what an awesome looking boathouse. You also have the cottage attached. I'm looking more towards an L shaped dock that's what I have it narrowed down to.

That will work out great and the lift is key in my opinion then your safe! Good luck.

Yes especially a lift I would not want my boat to sit in the water all summer long. I also figured to a bench would be nice to have on the dock. I have one of two options for the L shaped dock. Either have it go out 32' from shore and have that section be 4' wide, then the attached would be 32' off to one side with an 8' depth for the dock section. My boat would be on the width of the dock on a lift. So the overall width would be 36'. The other option would be to go 40' from shore with a 4' wide section. The attach a 24' wide section that is 8' deep. The my boat would be on the lift on the length of the dock.

Either should work well. Connect a dock does make a bench that goes on dock the last time I checked. The dock is held in place with steel poles but there are various options to secure it depending on the river/ lake bottom.

I would do the simplest configuration to start with and if you decide to do it different the next season you can always add more sections has needed. It is a pricy dock system but I have been pleased with it. The worst part is taking the poles out at the end of the season. The dock sections themselves are about 200 lbs each so two people can move them.