Lodge Life: Outdoor Projects

This spring at The Lodge has been a busy one! We’ve been out in the mountains nearly every weekend since we moved in. There’s always something to do; however, with our two littles, we have been very grateful for Alex’s parents’ long stay last month to help coordinate things and get some outdoor projects taken care of. They were extremely busy and oh so helpful!

Donna and Stan spent around a month out here and they sure can get a lot done. Here’s a photo dump of what they/we have been up to!

{We have a circular turnaround in our driveway and it circles around a large cluster of trees and decades of pine needles. Stan cleared out the brush and trimmed up the trees.}
{Stan was a big help to my dad and brother in building the swing set.}
{After my dad and brother left, Stan and Donna created the wood chip base and framing around it.}
{Ben loved palling around with his grandparents, especially now that he has his very own wheelbarrow!}
{Woohoo! Thanks to Donna and Stan we have outdoor furniture and a grill!}
{One of the biggest projects they did was to spread rock around the perimeter of the house. We’re in wildfire country out in Leavenworth and one of the fire safe recommendations is to have a 4-foot rock border around the house. We hauled in a massive dump truck full of rock and Stan took on the task of laying it. Thankfully he eventually agreed to rent a bobcat to make it a little easier!}
{In addition to spreading the rock, we cleaned up some of the brush near the house and trimmed up the trees – the guidance is to remove any branches 10-feet off the ground or below.}
{They shared some sweet moments with their grandchildren too!}

{Our most recent project has been getting blinds installed! We have 40 windows in the house and we ordered blinds for 14 of them – mainly the bedrooms that are commonly used and some of the windows in the great room. We opted for motorized blinds for the middle row of windows in the great room and they’re super slick. I only have a video of them going up and down, no photos. This is the kids room.}
{We went with blackout shades in the kids room and the other bedroom on the main floor, but chose a light filtering shade for our room. Personally, I would rather sleep with the curtains open so I can wake up and see the sun and the outdoors. It gets very sunny and very hot out in Leavenworth during the summer months so we figured we should try to block out a bit of the mid-day heat.}
{There is still a lot we want to do outside on the property; however, I think most of it is going to have to wait until next year. We’re hoping to get some plants and trees planted on the berm to start softening our view of the barn next door, otherwise it’s looking like our irrigation, grass and patio will wait until next year, and the garage will come when we win the lottery.}