Cabin #10 Improvements

The cabins at Thunder Mountain Lodge are each unique.  Each one has it's own personality.  They have had these personalities since before we bought them.  Our goal is to add to the character that is already there, and make each cabin great!  Cabin #10 needs a little more attention than the others.  I like to say that the garden walk wall paper is so bad it's awesome!  But there is also this pink wall paper in there that just does not belong in a cabin in the woods.  So I am undertaking the goal of putting up pallet board walls on top of the pink wall paper.  At first glance it looks like wall paper, but when you look closely you notice that it is paneling with texture in the pink flowers.  Kind of cool, but it still doesn't belong in a cabin...

Here are the steps I took:

1.  Prep the area

2.  Rip apart pallets

3.  Cut to size

4.  Sand

5.  Stain

6.  Polyurethane

Look at that shine!

7.  Paint the background wall brown

This is a very important step when working with pallet wood!  Pallets are not exact, and by painting the wall behind the pallets, it is much more forgiving.  You can see the texture on the panels now.

8.  Nail gun time!  I employed Jeff to come help with the big tools.

A few cuts were required as we were putting the pallets up.  I had decided that since the pallets are not really exact, that we would wait until this stage to cut the holes for the outlets.  

9.  Finished product

The other thing we addressed was the fact that Cabin #10 does not have a closet, rack, or shelf.  There was no way to hang anything or store extra blankets and pillows.  We had an old armoire that we moved in to solve the issue!  Sadly it blocks a lot of the beautiful new wall... but functionality wins here.

Also, if you look closely at the futon, we have two futon pads.  Cabin #10 has a lot of floor space.  So when we need to, we can pull one pad on the floor, put sheets on, and you can sleep more people now!  

This photo was taken Saturday 1/21/2017.  A little note here about the shovel.  Notice that it's on a hook by the door?  In the spring time we will find a red and black shovel that is buried somewhere under all of the snow....  Keep the shovels on the hooks, then when it snows 2 feet overnight, you can find your shovel!

Winter!

Winter has arrived in a fury!  Today we are getting our first major snow storm of the season.  Last year by November 17th we already had a three foot base of snow.  Winter is getting a late start this year, but his storm is making up for it.  It has been hammering hard for 4 hours now, and we have about 7+ inches of snow in the parking lot.  

The snow camera is live on our website now!  Check it out here.  Today has been windy, so it only shows that we have 5 1/2 inches.  When we get more snow, we will be able to put up the snow screen.  Then it'll be more accurate.  

If you are on snapchat, you should be following me for live updates:  @venusfairies ~ of course I mix in snaps of our cat Otto and cooking...  Life on the Mesa!  

Our summer and fall went by quickly!  We have been working hard on upgrading the cabins.  A few cabins now have new(er) mattresses.  We painted some exteriors, interiors, and added some new quilts and blankets.  Have you ever bought 150+ new towels?  It is expensive!  Even with a discount. But it is a nice amenity for our cabin guests to have all new fluffy towels!  Also somewhat new is supplying our guests with soaps and shampoos.  We used to tell people to bring their own personal soaps, but now we have some!  We are trying to make it so that the only thing you need to bring is groceries.  

Here you can see how we painted the bathroom in cabin 6.

In cabin 8, I redid the bathroom with pallets.  It turned out so amazing!  I pulled apart pallets, cut, sanded, stained, and polyurethaned the wood before putting it up on the walls.  The texture is great, and each piece of wood soaked in the stain differently, so even though each piece had the same stain, it turned out so varied.  

The next project is to use pallets in cabin number 10.  If you have stayed in cabin 10, you know that it needs a little updating.  We plan on putting pallet wood on the walls where the terrible pink wall paper is.  The terrible green garden wall paper is safe.  It's so bad that it is great!  At least for now....  

Here's your before picture.  Keep posted for an after picture!

We are filling up with reservations for the winter!  Make sure to book your cabin and snowmobile tour soon.  We are already sold out for New Year's Eve and a few weekends in February.  Hope to see you this winter!!

Dumping Snow!

Total of 6 feet of snow in the last week!

Well if there was any doubt before, it is definitely winter on the Mesa now!  Jeff and I were there to do some work on the cabins to get ready for opening, but we ended up just doing a ton of snow removal!  It wouldn't stop dumping!  It snowed at least 18" on Saturday, and continued well into Sunday!

We did manage to get some work done though.  You can see that cabin number four now has a nice stain on the interior.  We also finished putting up walls in the main cabin, our new lodge.

  

The sun came out and shined on us briefly.  This is it, the new lodge... Really it's just the largest cabin that had been rented before.  We have a long way to go before it is a real lodge to hang out in with a restaurant, but we are working on implementing a small restaurant this winter.  Keep checking for more info about this!

Jeff's new plow is working really well!  We had to keep plowing the lot, and then this past weekend we took the snow cat out for a cruise to push back the snow banks!  Glad it runs!!

Last weekend I had to go shovel a path to the well.  Rental cabins need running water!  They also need to be chlorinated.  The chlorination expert came up this past week to help us install our chlorinator, but first I had to shovel!

 

We had been staying in cabin number one, but since we are actually trying to open up for rentals, we finally moved all of our stuff out.  We are going to set up in the lodge for now, there are still bedrooms there from when it was a rental cabin.  I was able to take photos of cabin number one's interior now!

We also finished staining in cabin number five.  It's looking pretty good!  

Also good news, we are now officially open!!

Check out the website!

Driving up in the blizzard was difficult!  Highway 65 is plowed but still scary...  Drive safely, and come visit!

Meet the new owner!

Thunder Mountain Lodge is Re-Opening!

Meet the new owner ~ Jeff Kieper:
Jeff moved to Colorado from Wisconsin in 1998, and is an avid outdoor enthusiast. He worked as a raft and snowmobile guide for more than 15 years in the Vail area. Eventually, Ski-doo scooped him up to become the VIP tour manager, a position he held for 4 years. During the winter, he is almost always out on his snowmobile. Although he has been know to ice climb once in a while. When the snow melts, you can find him guiding people on some of the toughest white water around. Or climbing to the top of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks. Or maybe he's out ripping it up on his dirt bike. But maybe that's just in the past, now you will find him at Thunder Mountain Lodge. He will be plowing, shoveling, and doing repairs all over the property. Don't worry, he'll be plenty busy! Not only is he the proud new owner of Thunder Mountain Lodge, but he is also newly engaged to be married! That's right ladies, Jeff is off the market. We are planning on a wedding in June 2015 at the lodge. My name is Jessica, and I am helping Jeff with a lot of the technical work, the e-mails, the website, the reservations, and of course adding a feminine touch to the cabins.

Keep in touch, send us an e-mail, and we hope to see you soon!