The next day, Gerald continued the work he had started facing the stairwell from the garage.

For that stairwell, he decided to use some of the boards that were damaged with blue stains with the idea that he would treat them to make them look like weathered wood.

Here's how it looked once he got all the boards up.

Meanwhile, I got to work installing wainscoting in the bedrooms.

Gerald installed drywall on the remaining closet wall. He plans to design a large mirror that will take up most of the wall and include a painting of some scenes around the property.

Then J.C. helped him install the remaining drywall in the master bedroom.

While we were away, the crew that was working on our ceilings returned to finish the job.

They had completed two-thirds of the upstairs ceiling...

And two of the three dormers.

They had also started on the last third of the ceiling, which was separated from the rest of the space by a wall, so we decided to go with butt joints as opposed to the tongue and groove of the rest of the ceiling.

We actually liked it better.

We got to work on installing the molding in the master closet.

Here's how it looked when we were finished.

Finishing Touches

Our walls were far from finished, but Gerald couldn't resist some decorative touches. This is the south wall...

Next to the fire place...

Just outside the "tack room."... (We found this rope in the middle of the road on the way to Prescott one day.)

Above the French doors in the living room.

Walls and Ceilings

JC delivered another load of wood. After doing some electrical work, he got busy installing the ceiling in the master bedroom closet.

That done, I worked on installing the cedar paneling. This is how it looked after the first day.

Gerald's shop manager, Dave, came up on Saturday. He had given us a gift of a day's labor for Christmas. (Isn't that an awesome gift? Hey anyone out there wondering what to get us....) He and Gerald worked on paneling the south wall.

The following weekend, Gerald continued paneling other walls. This is the dining room wall. The open door is the utility room. In keeping with our barn theme, we've decided to call it the "tack room."

Water, Water Everywhere

We had hoped JDK would complete the installation of our ceiling the following week, but it snowed and the installers couldn't get to our house. Kathleen, who lives on flat land just inside the Ranch entrance said she wasn't even going anywhere, the roads were so bad.

When we arrived, the snow had mostly melted, except for some patches. The roads were in much better shape. Unfortunately, our crew had been reassigned.

Juan, the property owner with the contract for road maintenance, was busy installing culverts.

He was working on correcting this area, just south of our driveway, where the road looked more like a stream.

Juan deepened a trench at the side of the road leading up to the culvert so the water would have a place to go. This gives you an idea how much runoff there was.

Washes were running all over, including the big wash that runs near our house. I hiked up to a spot I call "the waterfall place," which looked like it would make an awesome waterfall. By then, the water was just a trickle, but it made a lovely sound, like a garden fountain.

Progress on the Home Front

When we next returned to the land, the first thing we noticed was our new street sign on the highway. Our POA was required to get them for 911 purposes.

We caught up to the sign installer, busy at work, not far inside the Ruger Ranch entrance.

We were busy with workers all weekend.

We hired the crew from JDK Insulation and Drywall, the company that did our insulation, to install the tongue and groove pine ceilings.

Dish Network also came out to pre-wire the house for satellite TV. With the incentives for new customers, we found that by adding two TVs, we could actually lower out existing satellite TV bill.

Gerald and I kept busy stocking firewood. We had burned most of the fireplace-sized wood that we had stacked around the house and in the barn. So Gerald cut up some longer pieces and stacked them in our new wood rack.