August 19, 2018 - Moving the Game Room

The Lodge Game Room has finally been moved.  On Friday, the movers came with their big equipment and moved the building 12 feet onto our property (it used to cross the property line by about 3 feet plus the overhang).  They were able to raise the building up about 24 inches so that we can add new supports and keep it out of the snow drainage.

Jim was busy all weekend adding new support framing while I worked on staining and sealing the mantle and some of the woodwork in the screen room.  Here are some photos of the moved building.

(photos to be added tomorrow from my phone).

August 12, 2018 - Work Weekend

We had to pick one of the hottest days of August to work on fixing the foundation and drainage on  the portable Big Game Room.  The room is actually a doublewide prefab building that we own next to the Emigrant Gap School.  When we first surveyed the land for the lodge, we learned that the school had placed the prefab on our property and, at one time, had payed a minimal lease fee for the land.  Once we notified the school district of the survey results, we re-instated the lease (which included the requirement to restore the property back to it's original state at the end of the lease).  Restoration would have required removal of the prefab, removal of a chain link fence, removal of all blacktop.  So when the school was about to close, we agreed that the restoration would not be required as long as the school gave us the prefab (a pretty good deal for both of us - since restoration would have been very costly and we liked the idea of having the pre-fab).


Since then, we have added a bunch of game stuff to the building (a foosball table, ping pong, a bumper pool table, and air hockey table) and added a propane heater (the original electric heater was broken) as well as detail cleaning and painting the inside of the building.  But we recently noticed that one side of the building was becoming unlevel - hence the foundation work.  And we need to adjust the location slightly since the building is just barely on the school property.

Once we get the problem corrected and the building adjusted, we plan to add a door on the "lodge side" of the building, close off the back side of the building (adding a storage room where the overhang is located today) and possibly add a small deck.  We will also be removing the chain link fence on our side of the building, fixing some leaks on the roof and painting.  One day, we hope to add a cast iron stove and possibly water.

There is no water or sewage in the building so it is not "living space" but it is fun for everyone to trek down there to play games.

This summer has also seen more and more forest fires in California, so Jim and I used the better part of two days to remove low branches from many of the trees on the property and cut down our now dried out sweet peas.  The lodge still has a lot of debris clean up to do and a lot of dead and dying trees to remove this fall.  We continue to lose trees to the Pine Beetle.

We hope our next visit hold less work and more fun.