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.

Claw-foot tub purchase

Randy and I bought a claw-foot tub for the cabin today. I've been looking for a good deal because the budget for this item -- like many others -- is a bit of a problem. I naively thought at the outset of this project that antique, salvage materials I want to use in the house would cost about the same as new ones. I've since found out everything from wood flooring to hardware and newel posts costs twice as much or more if it's salvaged.

Our builder based the budget on standard, new materials, and that budget is all we can afford. Claw-foot tubs are a case in point. Our budget for the two bathtubs the cabin will have is $500 each. You can buy a new claw-foot bathtub at Home Depot or Lowe's for $2,000 to $2,500. Price aside, this is not really what I want. I know I'm going to have to compromise on some things, buying new items that look like old ones, but I want to use materials that really are old if it's at all possible.

An architectural salvage business in Cullman, Ala., sells refinished claw-foot tubs. But the cheapest ones are $1,200. My grandmother saw an ad in the newspaper last week for a claw-foot tub that needs refinishing.

It was in Birmingham, and Randy, the kids and I stopped and looked at it last Sunday after leaving my parents' house there and heading back home to Tuscaloosa. It was on a trailer along with a bunch of other stuff the couple selling it were about to haul off to the dump. One claw foot is broken, but other than that, it's in pretty good shape. It definitely needs to be refinished, as there seems to be a layer of white paint on it that's peeling.

Here are some more photos I took:

The tub, along with a bunch of other "junk," was in a barn on property the couple bought about a year ago. The previous owner was supposed to clean out the barn, but never did. The couple didn't know anything about where the tub had come from originally.

I tried to get a few quotes on refinishing claw-foot tubs last week, but only got one -- $450 -- from the salvage place in Cullman. They said they carry a lot of claw feet, and I could probably find a similar one there. That will be $25. The couple was asking $200 for the tub. I got them to come down to $175 because of the broken claw foot. I briefly researched claw-foot tub refinishing kits. They cost $75 to $150 and basically allow you to perform a high-tech paint job. I might give this a try if I can't find someone to refinish the tub for $300 or less, which would put the total cost within the $500 budget. In a way, I would enjoy doing the project myself, but it requires a lot of sanding and the paint on the tub might have lead in it. I also know a professional would do a better job, and the finish would last longer. Apparently, seven to 10 years is the longest a refinishing job will last under the best circumstances.

I decided I could figure all that out later; the tub itself was a good deal, so I made arrangements to pick it up Saturday. A few weeks ago, Randy left his trailer on the property where the cabin is going to be built on Lookout Mountain, so my dad met us with his trailer Saturday morning. The tub weighs about 300 pounds. The man we bought it from has a tractor with a boom on it. He already had the tub attached to the boom with a chain when we got there yesterday morning. He lowered it into Dad's trailer and we turned it upside down since it was more stable that way.

Dad took the tub to his house and is leaving it on the trailer until I figure out what to do with it.

Randy and I went on to Lookout Mountain to see if our builder has accomplished anything else. The well house has been torn down, but that's it. Scott, the builder, is waiting for a subcontractor to drill out the existing well a bit more before he pours footings for the house. We expected the walls to be up by now. Oh, well. I guess I have plenty of time to refinish the tub and find another one.

Property before construction, cabin plans

My husband, Randy, and I bought five acres on the eastern brow of Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama early this year. The property overlooks the north Georgia mountains and the view is amazing. It's also less than a mile to Little River Canyon, one of the deepest U.S. canyons east of the Mississippi River. We plan to live in the cabin eventually, but at first we'll use it as a vacation home and rent it out when we can.

Here are some photos of the cabin site:

Here is Little River Canyon and Little River Falls:

We're using a Southern Living house plan. It's called "rustic beach cottage," but we're changing the cosmetic details to make it more of a "rustic mountain cottage." Of course, Randy can't get past the name and tells everyone we're building a beach house on a mountain. I drew the sketch at the top of the page to convince him it could look like a cabin. Here is the Southern Living sketch and the floor plan: