Durango damage

As promised in the previous entry, here are some photos of the damage to Randy's Durango. Ironically, he had just gotten the driver- and passenger-side windows repaired (they wouldn't roll down most of the time, and if they did, they wouldn't roll back up) after living with the inconvenience for a year because the repair was so expensive. Now the driver-side window is messed up again.

Basement walls and well

I did have to call the bank, and the builder is a bit annoyed with us as a result, but walls for two sides of the house are up now. The existing well has also been drilled 50 feet deeper. The well will be under the house -- something we couldn't avoid because it was there when we purchased the lot. The people we bought the lot from owned the adjoining lot as well and were planning to build a house in the middle. If we moved our house to the right it would be too close to the other lot; if we moved it to the left we'd lose most of the view. In any case, the well needs to work for a long time because if it ever dries up, we'll have to have another one drilled.

Here are some photos Randy took yesterday:

Randy also damaged his SUV while at the site. I meant to take some pictures of that, but he's gone on a business trip now, so it will have to wait. He was trying to move his trailer (you can see it in the far right of the above photo), which he left there a couple months ago. He and his brother-in-law, Eddie, were going to pick up a load of sod for Eddie's yard. Randy hasn't told me exactly what happened, but the molding over the rear left tire was ripped off and there's a gash in the driver's side door. The trailer is still stuck in some dirt.

Randy and Eddie can't order sod from the same company again because they didn't pick up the order. Apparently sod dies if left out overnight after it's been cut.

Randy was planning to pick up the green claw-foot tub with the trailer later in the day. It ended up fitting in the back of his Durango, so he was able to bring it back here anyway. It's almost in good enough shape not to need refinishing on the inside. At first I thought it hadn't been refinished before. The surface looks like the original porcelain. But when I looked closer I saw a few small places where a top layer of paint is peeling. That will need to be sandblasted off, and I can't do that. We'll have to have both tubs professionally refinished.

Second claw-foot tub

We bought another claw-foot tub today. It seems a bit premature seeing how nothing -- other than moving some dirt around -- has been done toward building the house, but I'll get to that later. The builder asked us to find the tubs as soon as possible so he would know where the plumbing needs to be installed, and we have.

This tub was advertised in a shopper on Sand Mountain, where Randy is from, and Eddie, his brother-in-law, and Rhonda, his cousin's wife, called us and told us about it. The woman selling it e-mailed me some pictures of it tonight. It looks like it's in better shape than the first one we bought and it costs less -- $150. I e-mailed her back and told her we'd take it. The green-and-gold paint scheme will have to go, but if the inside doesn't need to be refinished I might do that myself.

Here are some more photos of the tub. A stamp of the date it was made -- July 27, 1925 -- is on the bottom. A friend who bought a claw-foot tub for the Victorian house she's restoring told me they all have a "birthday." I'll have to take a closer look at the first one we bought -- it's at my parents' house -- because I didn't notice it on that one. The claw feet appear to be exactly like those on the other tub.

We went to the cabin site this past weekend. Scott, the builder, hasn't been returning Randy's calls, so we weren't sure if anything had been done. And it hadn't. It's been three months since the construction loan closed (and Scott received $20,000 from the bank), and the only change at the site is that part of an embankment has been dug out and the area where the house will go has been flattened.

As we were walking around, surveying the lack of progress, Randy asked if I wanted to get the camera out of the car and take some pictures. "Well..." I said, "I don't see how they would be different from the pictures we've already taken." He grinned and said he guessed I was right.

If I get another bill for an interest payment and nothing else has been done I'm going to have to ask someone at the bank what we should do. The house is supposed to be completed nine months from the closing date and if it isn't, we pay a penalty. I didn't understand this at first; it seems like the builder should pay. But the bank doesn't have a contract with the builder, I realized. It only has a contract with us. I'm getting worried the house won't be finished in time.