Friday, October 26, 2012

“Your House is…floating!”

I know it’s been a while since I have blogged. Things have been a little crazy with us for the last 2.5 weeks. Let me set the scene…

On Tuesday, October 9, we were in the midst of a pretty busy week. Todd had left that morning on a flight to Chicago for business. I was anticipating my annual Bunco hosting event that evening. We had spent a decent amount of time over the previous three days preparing the house and menu for this party. I think Todd likes it to be as perfect as I do since we don’t get to host very often. Anyway, I had scheduled Adela, our housekeeper, to come clean the house that afternoon. Thank goodness I had! (Keep in mind that the first time Todd met Adela, she couldn’t spell her last name out loud for him; she had to write it on her hand and show it to him. Her English is a little shaky at times.)

Anyway, I was meeting with a vendor, and we had made it back to my desk to review some things. My cell phone started ringing, but since I was with a vendor, I ignored it. Then, my work phone started ringing (which I later realized was just a coincidental call from my mom). Again, I ignored this call since I was busy. Next, another call came in on my cell phone. At this point, I started wondering who was trying to reach me so frantically. I looked, and it was Adela. She has never called me, but we text regularly. I got a little worried and asked my vendor politely if I could take the call. Thank goodness I did. Now, I won’t tell you our conversation because it wasn’t nearly as good as the voicemail she had just left for Todd. However, the message was the same. Todd was on a plane at the time, so luckily, we will have this voicemail in electronic history forever. It went something like this:


Hello, Mr. Todd. This is Adela. I just got to your house, and it is…inundating. (She can’t spell her name, but she knows the word “inundating”. Ha!) There is water everywhere. Your house is…(wait for it)…floating!! Please, call me back.

So, as you can imagine, when I answered my call from Adela and received this information, I began to panic. Immediately, I called my mother. She ran over there, and I immediately left work. At the time, I had to contemplate if I should just stay at work, and I was wondering if Mom would care if I just moved my Bunco party to her house. Ha! Silly girl. Little did I know how bad it was.

The culprit!

A dishwasher hose had come loose, and the entire first floor was floating, not flooding. J When I got home, Mom was already hard at work trying to push water out of the tiled kitchen area into the garage and out the back door. There was a good inch-and-a-half of water standing in my kitchen, mudroom, pantry, and laundry room. I got to work with her. Shortly thereafter, Mimi and Bill showed up. We spent several hours just moving water with brooms, dustpans, a shop vac, anything we could find to push water out. Then, we moved the furniture off the wet carpet and onto the tile and hardwoods. (I really owe a huge thanks to Mom, Mimi, Bill, and sister, Jenny, for helping in these efforts. Also, a big thanks to Rachel for even offering to help. All of us at the house took note of how sweet you are!! Bradette, I know you wish you could have been there!...you were in spirit.)

This is what my kitchen has looked like since the flood happened, and Farmers' think it's "livable"
 
Here's Mimi taking her dinner break
 
Mom is funny!
My entryway

Our cute blue shoes

Hours later, the disaster restoration company came and started tearing out everything, and I mean everything. They took all of the carpet, hardwood, and baseboards from the living room, office, master bedroom, master closet, entryway, and the girls’ bedroom/closet.

Our bedroom without carpet

Our living room with the fans
Our bathroom with the fans

Alvin tearing up our hardwoods.  I hated watching this!

Kaleb's room...the only place the didn't flood downstairs, so it gets to be storage.

The girls' room


Our new dishwasher...the hose outside and the sun
Dad showed up a little after the disaster restoration people, and Todd made it home about an hour later. Oh, when Todd landed in Chicago, he had a “911 call me” text from me.
J You’re welcome, honey. He didn’t even leave the terminal in Chicago. He turned right around, and caught a plane home.

When he got home, one of the first things he said was, “Well, I guess I finally got my boat.” J Later that night, he told me that if I didn’t want him to travel, I could find something better than flooding the house to get across my point. Even in stressful times, he makes me laugh.

That night, we stayed in a hotel because we didn’t finish with the disaster restoration people until 1 a.m. I wasn’t interested in waking Mom and Dad that late. However, every night since, we have been at Mom and Dad’s (with the exception of the one night we were both out of town). Thanks, Mom and Dad, for your patience and hospitality. Not every parent would be so generous!

Anyway, we finally got our hardwoods laid yesterday. It wasn’t easy, though. They had about 50 machines in our house for five days. It has taken almost 2 weeks after that to get any work done at the house. We will have baseboards finished next week and carpet the week after.



Our living room and kitchen drapes during the hardwood reconstruction

 
Our new hardwoods before stain

Our new hardwoods after stain
I am very frustrated with our insurance company, our builder, and the flooring place. Unfortunately, we could only fire one right now, so we are not using Floorhaus. J I do have to say that I love Renaissance (our hardwood company) and Carpet One (our carpet company). They have been wonderful and fast! Oh, and the guys from disaster restoration, Service Masters, were pretty great, too. They were very patient with my questions, so we fed them Sonic and homemade brownies.

Yummy brownies!!

Anyway, so that’s our last two weeks in a nutshell. On a good note, it has kept Todd home since the house “floated”. Plus, I’m getting to upgrade my carpets and put hardwood in the office. However, as much as I adore my parents and love their home, there is just no place like your own home. Todd has refused to do anything besides live out of a suitcase for fear that it means he’s admitting that it’s going to take a while. I think he probably wishes he had just unpacked 2.5 weeks ago. J

Sorry for the long post. There has just been a lot happen, and I’ve left out the majority of the detail since the incident happened. I must go now. I have to plot my plan for what I will do next time he tries to travel. Mwah ha ha ha ha!!! (That’s my evil laugh.)

No comments:

Post a Comment