Reason to Celebrate

I had an assignment at the Grand Canyon, and Gerald decided to head to the land while I was there to see what he could get done.

On that trip, he finished out the doorways, cut the last pieces of wall molding, spackled and gave them a first coat of paint.

A couple of weeks later, he brought up the final, semi-gloss coat. I painted the final coat, and then Gerald installed the fixtures.

That marked the completion of our first room.

Here's how it looked when it was done.

Here's the view from the other direction.

We had also been trying to figure out how to light the stairway. Gerald got the idea of using a rope light.

The idea was to hide it underneath a piece of top molding to just create a warm glow.

Here it is before the top molding was installed.

We tried it that night, and it worked perfectly.

Safety Barriers

After much deliberation about what to put around the perimeter of the porch, we finally settled on rebar, with a larger top rail.

Gerald got an amazing deal on the rebar. The top pipe is well pipe, which a local well driller gave him for free.

We loved the look, and thought it had just the right look for a "barn" residence.

JC welded in a support in the center of each log so the rebar couldn't be pulled apart.

Gerald worked on the ends of the porch.

By the end of the second work day, JC had finished nearly all of the south side...

And all of the east, save for the gate.

Stairway to Heaven?

Once the exterior railings were well underway, Gerald tackled the interior safety railings.

We decided to go with the same look: rebar with well pipe for a top rail.

We marked where the holes should be drilled but marking a flat board then holding it up to each support post, in turn, marking where each should be drilled.

Then Gerald drilled the holes at an angle, cut the materials and put them in place.

Here he is pushing the bottom support in place to lock in the rods.

For some reason, we thought we needed more rods than we did. Fortunately, we figure it out before we cut them all. When it's all done, we'll cut the top of the post to a reasonable height.

There was a conference about what needed to be done. JC is at the top. His daughter, Liz, is at the bottom.

Once the bottom rods were in place, Gerald started on the top.

It was hard to get the angle right, and that took a little finessing. We weren't able to finish the job by the time we had to leave.

Trixy

Gerald and I had arrived at the land separately. I had an assignment that involved a backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon, so Gerald and I planned to meet at the land when I was finished.

I was nearly there, when I saw a little reddish dog. Someone had apparently dumped her.

That night as we sat on the porch, the dog came up the driveway. We called to her, but she ran away.

The next morning, she was sitting outside our door.

JC was scheduled to come up that day, so Gerald called and asked him to pick up a bag of dog food, which he did. We gave her some water and food, and she refused to budge from the porch for the rest of the day. She was a very sweet dog, but skinny and a bit skittish.

Turns out, JC and his wife had been talking about getting a dog for their son, Tres. So JC took her with him when he left. It took quite a lot of convincing and a makeshift leash to get her off the porch and into the truck.

A couple of weeks later, JC brought her back to visit. She was now Trixy, and seemed a whole new dog.

She had filled out quite a bit and had lost every bit of skitishness. She just seemed a healthy, happy, sweet dog. Of course, we felt connected to her, so it was great to get to spend some time with her.

Drywall, Wet Walls

While we were away, JDK mudded and taped the drywall in the master bedroom and bathroom. So when we got back, it was ready to paint.

We liked the color of the bathroom, but wanted something lighter. So Gerald did a field blend, lightening that color with an off-white paint until we got something that resembled sage green.

We thought we had enough to do the master walls and ceiling, but I used every last little bit just to cover the walls.

On Sunday, Gerald went to Lowes in Prescott with a color sample we had painted.

Painting the ceiling proved hazardous and required special gear.

Unfortunately, the ceiling paint Lowes mixed up didn't match what we had on the walls. It was darker and bluer. So I had to do it all over again the following week with a corrected batch.

We also got enough to do the master bath. Unfortunately, when I went to install the outlet covers, the outlets were recessed too deeply into the walls, which were now all plastered over. JC suggested #8 flat washers to remedy the situation.

A Quickie

Our next trip was a quicky, and I was gone for much of it. But when I returned, Gerald and J.C. had gotten a lot done.

Gerald replaced this corner cabinet in the kitchen...

With a different one he had found that had glass panels in the front (not installed here) and an "appliance garage" below. The cabinet to the left was one he had made at the shop. They matched up perfectly.

Gerald also brought up other cabinet components he had built and painted, and were ready to assemble.

He had been lucky enough to find additional tile that made a perfect match to the tile we had run out of, so he filled in the last bit. It was nice to get it in place.

Meanwhile, J.C. finished up the plumbing work and began skinning the last wall in the utility room. Unfortunately, the next day we noticed that the subfloor was wet and at least part of J.C.'s nice wall will have to come down so we can find and fix the leak.

Gerald thought we might consider using screws instead of nails so we can get into the wall more easily should something else go wrong.

Aside from that, we were busy with guests. POA VP Don Burton stopped by for lunch one day. Another day, we visited our newest property owners, Bjorn and Rachel, on their parcel. They visited us the next evening for cocktails and we all had dinner together at Rumors. The next day, Joy, our POA secretary, and her husband, David, stopped by for a visit just as we were packing up to head home.

While I worked on the glass, J.C. hung the lights over what will be our "lunch counter."

Meanwhile, Gerald went back to work finishing up our guest bathroom. He had gotten some paint the color we thought we wanted for our accent wall, but when we put it on the wall, it looked very dark.

So we kept adding "Celtic Linen," the off-white we used for the beadboard in the rest of the bathroom.

Eventually, we got a color we could live with, and Gerald finished the painting, and then finished up the moldings around the ceilings and doors.