Talk about a white Christmas!

What a beautiful site, we're happy tonight...walking in a winter wonderland!

We got 6-8 inches of beautiful snow on Christmas Day and the following day. Mike, Sammie and I had to leave TN early to make it home. :-( We barely made it home in time for the weather to get REALLY bad! We bundled Sammie up for her first play in the snow and enjoyed our time together.

The sun is out now and it is starting to melt but it sure was pretty!

Almost Done!!!

The Lodge was supposed to be finished this month, but there is still a little left to do. It is VERY close though! It looks beautiful too! It looks almost like it used to, but better! I'll walk you through it...

The Kitchen:

OMG... the kitchen was gutted and the floorplan switched. The idea is that the Teaching Kitchen wing may eventually get equipment and will then be able to access the cleaning part of the kitchen, storage and fridge/freezer without having to go through the entire kitchen. We just got all new equipment too! A new oven with burners, a brazon tilt skillet, a new warmer and a NEW DISHWASHER (that is square!). The big windows now have roll up doors so they do not run the risk of falling and landing on someone.

The Main Lodge Dinning Room:

This area is the last to complete because they want to refinish the floors as the last thing. They have removed and re-placed the trim around the windows and added blinds. They have removed and moved a few doors. They have installed the HVAC ducts and are waiting on the lights. They should be here next week. They have added a large storage area at the far end of the dinning hall to put chairs, tables and rental equipment. The will be touching up the face of the fireplace to fill in cracks...I think we will be moving to gas log for a few reasons: 1) We have an intense fire suppression system now and do not want to trigger it 2) the flumes were very damaged and cannot affordably be fixed. Meaning there would be smoke leaked into the dining hall, thus setting off the sprinklers.

The Officers Lounge/Chestnut Room:

The history in this room was very important to preserve. They had to take the roof off for structural reasons and also the walls. The saved the panelling to re-hang. They wanted the roof to be the same height as the rest of the Lodge so they raised it a few feet. This left a gap between the existing panelling and the new roof. It will be painted a cream color like the matching wings. They did exposed beams and black hardware and it looks amazing!

The New Addition:

There was 40 square feet of additional space added on, it includes a bathroom for each gender and a new camp store. The old deck was also taken off and a new wrap around deck was built with composit boards make from recycled plastic.

Getting Closer!

Every time I go into the lodge is looks better and better. The kitchen actually looks like a kitchen now! It has white shiney walls and tile! It looks so nice! It has a metal pull down window cover now instead of the heavy wood ones on the hinge so we can actually get meals ready and then open the window. So much better! There is also an office for the kitchen manager and staff to use!

The "teaching kitchen" that is where my office used to be will not have any equipment in it right now. We will need to get funding to purchase the equipment. As of right now, it will be left rough ended, meaning the pipes and fixtures are sticking out of the wall alittle bit so that the equipment can be installed easily when it is available. Until then, we will use it as another meeting space or classroom. They have started to put the trim up also. I can't wait to see what it looks like against the wood panelling in the main dining room area!

The Officers Lounge, bathrooms and the new camp store look great too! We will post more pics as they get more donw with them.

More Lodge Progress

The Main Lodge is coming along beautifully! It is alittle behind schedule unfortunately but making progress daily. They thought it would be done mid-Nov but has been pushed to the end of Dec now. It is a bummer that we will miss the entire Christmas season of rentals, but I would rather it all be done right.

They have started painting the Lodge and it is starting to look like it's old self again...only nicer. They poured the concrete stairs and ramp in the back porch area and have started re-laying the stones. They have intalled the walk-in fridge AND freezers and they are huge!

Going, Going, Gone

We had a large piece of history come down. Behind the Main Lodge we had a Big Oak tree that had died and was making us nervous with all the new construction. We called out East Valley Tree and they did a fantastic job of safely removing the tree without any damage to the surrounding buildings. They then carved the stump into a chair so that campers can continue to enjoy the Big Oak in a different way for many years to come! They also took down a big pine behind the Mountain View Lodge and a few other trees around the property for safety.

Summer Progress-part 3

We had the Day of Caring this past week where United Way partners businesses with local non-profits to come and do projects for a day. The Asheville Metro Sewer's Facilities Maintenance Department came out for the day and built us a beautiful amphitheater in the woods and stained the addition to the back deck of the Mountain View Lodge.

We picked out the location for the amphitheater about a year ago, but with no maintenance help I was not sure we would be able to get it finished. There was only 5 of them but they got more done in one day then I could have ever imagined. They cleared the area, built a fire ring, built a stage and built 9-10 benches. Once they finished that, they stained the back deck in less than an hour!!! We are SO impressed with these guys and are go appreciative of their generosity!

The lighting was not the best when I was taking pictures so it may be hard to see the amphitheater, I will try to get some one on a cloudier day.

Summer Progress-part 2

Our big project is our Main Lodge...thinking of calling the the Chestnut Lodge once we re-open it. It would give us an opportunity to use Chestnut from the "Wormy Chestnut" in the Lounge side but not have wormy in there. There has been alot of progress over the summer. They have the supports for the new wrap around porch done. It is huge! And it is going to be great. The front entrance now has double doors and the gable is twice the size. The porch will wrap around the building to the right and go to another deck in the back right corner leading up to the Rec Hall.





The siding is going up right now. They are using a "concrete" siding so that it will not deteriorate over time. It will be stained the same color as before so that it matches the cabins also.






The roofing is going on right now too. It is a metal roof in a champagne color. They voted me out of the green roof and I agree that it will accent the trees and make it cooler in the summer. It is the same color as the trim on the building, as well as, the trim on the new cabins and the benches on the existing cabins.






The interior of the lodge is taking shape also. I can see where everything is going to go and how it is going to come together once done. The kitchen is huge! and it is switched from before so that the cooking side is on the left and the cleaning side is on the right. We are gaining 2 large bathrooms and the offices we have decided will become the camp store. We think it will be a good place to offer cantina every day, it will also be in a good location to have it open during some events for people to purchase shirts, coffee mugs, snacks, etc during their event.