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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Watery Mess (hopefully there is no part 2)

Sooo....last night, I walked into the living room to get the laundry out of the washing machine and found water covering the floors of our dining room, kitchen, laundry room, and slowly creeping into our living room. Apparently, our washer forgot to STOP filling up with water during the wash cycle - for over an hour. We didn't notice because we were in our room watching TV.

I called my parents. They have a rainbow vacuum that can suck up water. But we're talking A LOT of water here people! But, what else were we to do? We couldn't go to sleep with an inch or so of water covering our floors! My dad headed over. Then I called our friends who lived about 5 minutes away, the Barnetts. They had TWO huge shop vacs...lifesavers! So at 10:30pm, Creed graciously came over with the shop vacs and him, Septtro, and my dad did all they could to dry out the floors. We do have engineered hardwoods in our dining room and living room so that was definitely a concern.

The water ended up in our master bedroom closet and bathroom as well as a little bit in the hallway. Honestly, I found myself surprisingly calm. Perhaps all these experiences of things not going according to my plan during this pregnancy had helped prepare me for this? :)

The guys finished about 1:00am. This morning, Septtro called our insurance and they sent a restoration company over. The estimate? Well over $4,000...not including a new floor and a new washing machine - if we needed one (insurance won't cover the washing machine since it caused all the damage but should cover anything else that was damaged because of it). They will cover the hardwood flooring but it's not been determined whether or not that can be saved (the ceramic tile will be fine).

So my day today was not quite spent how I had planned. I had carpet pulled up, fans everywhere, my entire master closet emptied into my bedroom, baseboards taken off the floors - not quite the place for a toddler. Not to mention, I can't do ANYTHING in my house while this is going on. Everything is misplaced, dirty, and unorganized.

Here are the positives:

1. This could have happened while I wasn't home or even while I was by myself.
2. Tax return (not exactly how I would have liked to spend that money but God provides doesn't He?)
3. Ri slept part of the time the clean-up was going on last night and went back to bed very easily
4. After our deductible, insurance should be covering everything with the exception of our washing machine

So here's what my house looks like now. And I imagine, it can only get worse these next few days with the floor being torn out and more baseboards being taken apart. But, I keep reminding myself it's only temporary and one day, I'll have my house back. And what a blessing it is to even have a house...and insurance!

Those two huge red things are dehumidifiers.


This is the kitchen and the doorway into the laundry room (and pantry). These two rooms got the worst of it. The guy that came today had to drill holes in my kitchen cabinets at the very bottom so they could blow air in under the cabinets to dry out everything.


And this is our bedroom. Our master closet floor had to be cleared out since there was water in there. Guess it's a good reason to go through everything and do a lil spring cleaning!


Apparently the humidity level in the house was 70% - kinda high. We have fans and dehumidifiers that will run for at least 3 days - possibly more. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle Ri during the day while all of this is going on. But, as I've been learning, God is teaching me to be flexible....VERY flexible - and to trust that He's in control.

2 comments:

Holly said...

ANother positive is that it wasnt sewage water...remember my not so happy new years 2010? I almost forgot about it until I saw all your pictures and it reminded me of having my house full of water&crazy disorganized for awhile. I didnt handle it as well as you :)

The Halbert Home said...

After we bought our house we found out that all of the flooring and sub flooring had been replaced because the refrigerator water line leaked for 17 days straight while the previous owners were out of town. They had to redo drywall, floors, everything. Watery messes can be pretty bad but I am glad to read yours wasn't worse.