Easier and Safer

Being installed. For some reason, I didn’t take a picture of the finished product.

The railing being carried into the house

And she’s climbing the stairway to heaven.

—Robert Plant

Going up and down the stairs just got easier and safer. The contractor installed the custom stair rails today. He did a really good job on them, echoing the scrollwork in the front door. Also ties together with the chandeliers Suna chose for the entry.

 

Appliances!!

Installing the refrigerator Suna wanted a wine refrigerator in the kitchen. There's a big one in the storm room.

“That oven is heavy. Let me think about this for a minute.”

Jaime and his son are hard at work installing the kitchen appliances. I think the hardest one is going to be the refrigerator, which is designed to fit inside a cabinet. Once it’s in, we can install the cabinet panels that will make it invisible.

I am glad the granite is tough because it is certainly being challenged, as you can see in the photo.

In Other News…

Suna is a member of a blue healer group on Facebook. One of the other members read of Stella’s tragic accident and contacted her. She said her bitch had just pupped, and she offered us one of the two pups. It is an extremely sweet offer, but I’m not sure I am ready for another dog—especially one that will look a lot like Stella.

 

Goodbye, Little Girl

When I say “constant companion,” I mean constant. She never left my side willingly. She wouldn’t let a stranger not fall in love with her.

Stella died today. I am heartbroken. She’s been my constant companion for more than a year—ever since she chose me.

All I can say is she must have really loved me to help me learn a lesson this hard.

I buried her in the field near Heinrich’s grave. I will miss her for a long, long time.

 

Countertops Are In at the Hermits’ Rest

Our additional granite gets loaded on a truck to go to the fabricator’s shop. AJ and Ruben discuss the project over the newly installed island countertop. AJ has the cooktop and sink marked in tape.

AJ’s crew works on making a countertop fit tight. Granite window sills look great, and they’ll hold up to plant being watered better than wooden sills.

  Try'na make a dovetail joint fit tight

  Anything I do I know I must do right

  And while the buzz saws whine

  I paint the fireplugs red

—Steve Forbert

You can buy prefab granite countertops if you buy prefab cabinets. If you have custom cabinets in your house, you have to select individual slabs of granite at a stone yard. That’s Suna’s job. I literally couldn’t tell the difference between some of the slabs she sweated over.

But that’s all done now. The cabinets have been measured and the countertops designed. We found out we were a little short on one of the types, and we had to pick out another slab to have enough. That’s a risk when you buy the granite way too soon.

The granite artisan, shaped the general cuts in his shop but brought enough tools to cut the holes for the cooktop, sinks, and so on here onsite. We had enough scrap from the cuts to make almost all of our window sills out of granite or whatever stone we used in that room. Suna knows all their names.

 

Septic Woes

“I’m on my matt. All that work makes me tired.”

The contractor digging out the septic tank, which is right beside a buried 500 gallon propane tank.

You can stab ’n’ shoot ‘n’ spit

But they won’t be fixin’ it

They’re lyin’ an’ lazy

They’re drivin’ you crazy

—Frank Zappa

Our septic system is finally complete, and it passed inspection. Since we’re way out in the county, the septic was the only permit we had to pull and the only inspection we had to pass. But that was bad enough.

Our first contractor disappeared after finishing the installation. He told us the system had passed inspection, and we should be receiving the license to operate the septic “in a few days.” That was the last we ever heard from him.

When I went to the county to inquire about the license, they told me he had most certainly not passed the inspection and that it would be illegal to use the working restroom in the garage for anything. The inspector told me she had only known him to have about a 30% pass rate, and she was going to pull his license to work in Milam county. And this was a guy who had been recommended!

Damn! Not knowing how this works, I’d already paid the bastard, who wouldn’t answer his phone or emails. And his voicemail was too full to accept other messages—probably with other dissatisfied customers.

The only way to get it right is to get out of the machine and measure for yourself.

While the septic drama was going on, the cabinet maker began installing the cabinets. I love the 3-D effect.

After a couple of weeks, I decided I had to just eat the cost. My lawyer said I had a good case but the chances of the bad contractor having anything to collect would be infinitesimal.

I set about finding another contractor who would finish the work. It’s easier to find a contractor to do a job than it is to find one willing to fix someone else’s mess. But I did.

He showed up here a couple of days ago and went to work. Between my backhoe and his trackhoe, he got the tank dug out and moved. He had to be really careful because we had since installed a 500 gallon underground propane tank next to the septic tank.

Nothing blew up, and he managed to get the tank leveled, which involved replumbing the main supply line. When he attempted to lift the tank to level it, it moved almost a foot closer to the propane tank. It turned out to be level when it stopped.

Lesson learned: You don’t know what you don’t know. Don’t beat yourself up about learning a lesson. The school of hard knocks will do that for you.