Kinky Confessions

Seems like forever. Anyway, she got our estimate and had three local contractors submit bids too. They all came back higher than ours. Like, ten times higher.”

My eyes bugged.

“Right,” he agreed. “Which tells me two things. One, we underestimated the work. And two, Susan expanded the scope. So, here’s what I found out.

Our original estimate was based on your notes and her guesses. Nothing wrong with those, but once she had the local guys look at the job, she realized things were a lot worse than she’d thought. She called it ‘benign neglect,’ but she basically means your friend Jeremiah fixed the surface issues and didn’t address a lot of the underlying problems.”

“Paint over the water stains,” I said with a nod, “but ignore the leak itself.”

“Exactly. So the local contractors found a lot more problems than you or Susan suspected. Your dad sort of told her the same thing. He mentioned all the work you guys did on the electrical service for the clubhouse and said

what a mess it was. The whole camp is like that, evidently.”

“Oh, boy.”

“‘Oh, boy’ is right. So, we underestimated the work. Not our fault, but it happened. The other thing we have to deal with is that Susan expanded the scope of the project based on the local guys’ initial comments. According to them, several of the larger cabins aren’t worth renovating. They have dry rot, water damage, foundation issues, you name it. They’re used less often than the smaller cabins, so they didn’t receive as much maintenance. They’ve just been rotting away for thirty years.

“We agreed it might make more sense to demolish them and rebuild, but she needs to look at her visitor numbers for the past few years to make sure it’s justified. Jeremiah mostly took care of that, and she realized she’s let things slide. But wait, there’s more,” he said before I could reply. “She also wants us to take a look at the new Retreat. The clubhouse and pool are finished, but the bungalows themselves still need work. She was going to have Jeremiah—”

“Gunny,” I interrupted. “Everyone called him Gunny. Only Susan called him Jeremiah.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Trip said, “but she kept saying ‘Jeremiah,’

so I wasn’t sure. Anyway, he was going to oversee the rest of the construction on the bungalows at the Retreat. They’re all in the dry and have finished exteriors, but the interiors still need work. So we’d need to trim them out and install the fixtures. But that’s only the first part of that project.” He took a deep breath before he continued.

“She’s talking about adding six more bungalows if the demand is there.

And she thinks it will be, at least until we can remodel the motel buildings at the main camp. A cinder-block room without a bathroom was fine back when the camp was built,” he explained unnecessarily, “but people expect a few more amenities these days.” He grimaced when he realized who he was talking to. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just repeating a lot of what we discussed.”

“No problem,” I said. “Sounds like you had a lot to talk about.”

He gestured at the pile of paperwork and his copious notes. “Two solid hours. Wren even brought me dinner in here.” He scrubbed a hand over his face again. “Anyway, the bungalows. She wants to add more. We’ll have to finish the existing ones first, though. I told her that you and I can do that ourselves, over the summer. She said that’s fine. She wasn’t ready to open the Retreat for visitors anyway. So we’ll probably have the place to

ourselves.

“But that brings us back to the main camp,” he continued. “She wants to update all the motel rooms with modern amenities. That’s a bigger job because of the plumbing issues.”

I nodded. The motel-style buildings had concrete foundations, which we’d have to jackhammer through if we wanted to add proper sewer lines.

We could simply add raised floors for the bathrooms and run the lines that way, but the buildings didn’t have a wet wall for the water supply lines. So each solution posed a challenge.

“And that gets us to an even bigger part of the expanded scope,” Trip continued. “If she updates the motel rooms, she’ll need to update the clubhouse as well. It’s a patchwork of buildings, she said, that her parents expanded over the years. And if the electrical panel your dad mentioned is any example, the whole thing is probably one big code violation.”

“Not to mention a fire hazard,” I added.

“Right. So she’s talking about a total renovation. Maybe use the existing structure, maybe demo and rebuild. We’ll have to decide.”

I whistled softly.

“Mmm hmm,” Trip said. “She also has several vacant houses from residents who’ve died or moved to nursing homes over the years, people who had long-term leases from her parents’ days. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with them, but we’re already talking about a major camp-wide renovation, so she wants us to take a look at ’em and give her some advice.