Epic Floor Replacement and Renovation That Took Months

This particular blog actually took place over many months.  I never knew exactly when to start writing about it because it was so multifaceted and long-term…so exhausting….experience.  So I just waited until we were finished and then put this blog post together.  

Oh my, what an adventure.  We survived Hurricane Harvey with no damage at all even though the flood waters came frighteningly close (3 blocks).  So that was a sigh of relief,…but floods came to our house anyway on the night of January >>>>>>>> Ivy was in the master bedroom playing on her iPad,  I was in Ivy’s room watching TV, and Holly was in the living room also watching TV.   I heard a ‘pop’ that sounded unusual, but not terribly loud or destructive.  I thought, “What was that?” and listened for a moment.  I didn’t hear anything else, so I just dismissed it and continued watching TV. 

I move into the living room and join Holly in her TV watching, when about 45 minutes later, Ivy walks up and says, “Why is there water on the floor?”

“Huh?  Where?”  

“Over there, by the washing machine.” 

I check it out.  Yes, lots of water on the floor.  Suddenly, I put it all together in my head.  Oh crap!  That’s what I heard.  Water must have poured out of the washing machine somehow!  Sure enough, it was slowly flooding the kitchen, dining room, and both bedrooms.  So much flooding, in fact, that it destroyed the drywall in 3 rooms and cost (as we would eventually discover) about $10,000 in repairs. 

Long story short, insurance covered a tremendous amount of the cost of repairs.   But we decided to just go ahead and replace the entire floor throughout the whole house.  I always hated the carpeting in the master bedroom and Ivy’s bedroom anyway.  It was dirty and ugly and a pain in the butt to clean.  I was totally okay with removing ALL carpeting from the house completely.  Holly agreed, so we set our minds of finding a wood floor that we both liked.  We eventually decided upon wood-tile (ceramic tile that looks like wood).  

Our lives were upended during this time.  We were living in a house that was being reconstructed, which meant sleeping wherever and whenever.  It was very unpleasant at times.   The thing that bothered me most was the loud blowing fans which supposedly dried out the water damage.  It was either that or replace the drywall.   That would’ve been very expensive, so I just sucked it up and listened to extremely loud fans blowing for about 5 days.  Sections of our house were sanctioned off for days (24 hours a day).  For me, it was horrible, since I can’t stand ‘white noise’.  I didn’t sleep much at all during this time.  It was exhausting. 

 

As always, with home repair, there were unexpected surprised we had to deal with.  The biggest one was the fact our floor in the dining room and kitchen wasn’t completely level.  The guys literally had to cut our kitchen door out and lift it up about 1 inch to make it a match.  

            

While we were at it, I said “Let’s just repaint the kitchen, dining room, and living room.”  Holly agreed.  So, thus, began that project which I and Jose did all by ourselves.  

Then Holly says, “Let’s redo Ivy’s room!”  Okay, but how?  Eventually she determined it would be a ‘loft’ sort of theme with faux brick walls and wood paneling. 

There were plenty of days where everyone was cranky with each other.  There were a thousand opportunities and reasons to be cranky with each other during this time.  Always over some details, or some notion that another person wasn’t pulling their own weight in the situation.  But we made it through, and even managed to have some laughs with people along the way.   Especially from the house-builders next door about 10 feet away.  We even literally fed material from my kitchen window to their kitchen window…. that’s how close we are!