Winter in Minnesota can be tough. You could retreat for 5 months and cower in misery… or you could BUILD A WICKED COOL ICE-FORT! That’s what Ben and I decided to do. So a couple of years ago (Yes, over 730 days before today!!), we started saving up milk cartons. [The idea gripped us when we saw this incredible fort -> http://www.viralnova.com/backyard-igloo/ .] Then, when the cold spell hit Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, we started our crazy project! Here’s a photo record of our progress:
A cool project during a cold winter for a kid and his dad
Ben and I have been saving milk and OJ cartons for two years.
In all we used about 175 cartons and made 20 ice cream bucket blocks
I wanted to build the igloo in the middle of the yard, but Ben was worried about “bad guys” wrecking it. So he chose a spot under the deck.
About 3 rows in we couldn’t get the blocks to stick… Then Ben figured out we could use slush as the mortar. Saved the whole project! And made our hands wet and frozen.
Early on…
Some progress after a night of freezing…
It was more work than we anticipated. The hardest part was ripping the paper cartons off of the ice blocks with slush-frozen gloves!
We let the first two angled rows freeze hard. We poured water over them and let them sit for a day.
It’s ready for the roof!
Getting closer!
The look of this at night got us pumped!
More night-time work…
Almost done with the arch!
We used an industrial bucket from Lowes… hauled water outside… then used ice-cream buckets to make slush to hold the blocks together.
Putting the blocks on the roof was a slushy sloppy mess… Our gloves were like ice. Totally worth it.
First photo of the totally done ice fort!
Enough room for 2 and a dog… maybe.
We hope the dog doesn’t like it too much… or we’ll begin to wonder which of the yellow blocks were still made with food coloring…
Boring side view.
Another look.
It’s fairly warm inside… compared to the 20 degree weather outside.
Like stained glass.
Very cool place to hang out this winter…
First picture together inside the new fort. Had a great time doing this project together!
View from the back at night
Looks inviting!
#growdown
#makeadifference
