Floods and Updates

It was as I had expected. That inspector was definitely a hard ass. And the strange thing was, he had been instructed only to take pics of the boiler, the bathroom, and the kitchen. All of which are in perfect working order. Mike tried to explain to him that we'd made improvements to avoid cancellation and pointed these out to him, but no no. He didn't need any of that.

Apparently he had a photo of the house with the farmer's porch on it - so they'd been to the house before without our knowledge, taking pics of the exterior. And that's honestly fine with me - but we JUST added the railings a few days ago. Not to mention the gutters. Again, Mike tried to explain this, but to no avail.

When I found out around 4 yesterday, I immediately got on the phone with our rep to make her aware of it. She was going to be following up with the insurance company anyway. And she better not take any guff from them if they try to say things aren't done. I wish I could talk to them myself.... on second thought, probably not the best idea.

"Home insurance cancelled due to psychotic home owner." Yeah, I'm definitely a liability.

Anyway, long overdue, here are some pics of the recent inspection-ready improvements:

Gutters and downspouts on one side - Mike's advice - it is easier to put them together on the ground and then put them up as one unit instead of trying to attach them to the house piece by piece.

Gutter on the back - much needed!

Temporary porch railing - lookin good.

Ah the exterior lights are back up again. It's all for temp, but still...

Completed basement railing - a little funky, but still functional.

And now on to the drama.

After clicking on the title to this post you're probably wondering where the flood's at. Well, it was a dark and stormy night. (Last night.) We started out with snow in the morning, which changed to rain in the afternoon and evening as the temperature climbed from the 30's to the mid 50's! What an incredible change. The wind was wild, the fog was everywhere, and by the time I got home, melting snow was creating huge rivers and puddles.

Around 7 I suddenly turned down the volume on the TV - I heard water. Not just dripping water either - this was definitely a fast moving waterfall dripping on some kind of hard surface. We started walking around, hoping that it was just the new gutters doing their job. Unfortunately, when we reached the basement - we discovered our favorite back window leaking again.

And not a small leak either.

Immediately, Mike shut off the boiler - which you can see in the pic is right in the line of fire. I had to quickly prop up a wooden sleigh bed I was storing near by on a few pieces of wood to keep it out of the fast growing puddle - although luckily that was the only thing I was worried about being damaged.

Mike grabbed his gordan's fisherman outfit and rushed outside, where he discovered that it wasn't so much the falling rain off the roof, but a river of melting snow running off the hill, straight into the window.

He was outside for nearly an hour with a shovel and the skid steer trying to divert the oncoming tide. Meanwhile I'm in the basement snapping a few pics... I guess I nearly gave the poor guy a heart attack. He thought the flash was something electrical arcing out in the basement!

Note the faint line about halfway up the window glass - that's where the water is. Trapped in the window well. It looked like a fish tank.

Eventually Mike was able to divert the water and slow the flow as it were. The flood ended with a quick vacuum of the basement with the wet dry vac.

Thank god the inspector wasn't around for that!

I-Day

I-Day or Inspection Day has arrived. And did I mention there's a few inches of snow on the ground and it only just turned over to freezing rain?

Excellent day for an inspection. Who knows what the roads will be like between 2 and 3 when this dude is supposed to show up, but I haven't received a cancellation call yet.

Mike is home tidying up a few last minute things - installing that basement stair railing, installing an exterior light, and hopefully not creating any big messes after I ran around this morning like a madman to finish the cleaning.

He finished the gutters on Monday, to great relief. We actually had a boatload of extra pieces that I was able to return to the Home Depot yesterday. What an even greater relief! Yesterday he installed the temporary railing on the farmer's porch - which looks great. Too bad I didn't have an opportunity to take down the xmas lights. But no matter. They're not even plugged in.

I'll be glad when 4:00 rolls around and I know the dude has come and gone. Then we're back to the baby's room. (Thank god because it's already Feb as far as I'm concerned.)

Lumber Liquidators called me yesterday - the flooring is in. Mike will be able to pick it up this weekend if not tomorrow/Friday depending on his schedule. He keeps asking me where I want to put all the extra. Hell if I know. (That's my one cheezy joke that I know - what do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino? 'El-if-I-know.)

Anyway - as I said before, once we pick it up we can go ahead and install it. This time we'll have to rent the traditional flooring nailer (you know, the one you hit with a hammer and all) instead of the little 3/8 stapler. Mike would like to do the hallway at the same time too - and now we wish we hadn't returned those two sheets of 3/4 plywood.

I doubt it can all be done this weekend. Everything's just been so crazy leading up to this stupid inspection. We need a break.

Only 48 Hours

The inspector will be at home Wed between 2 and 3.

Side note - I'm totally going absolutely extreme annoyance theorem right now. I want to run screaming out of here at light speed, in fact. (Imagine someone repeating, sometimes singing, the same word for over an hour in the next room. Yup, that's life sometimes.)

So obviously I need to take a break before I go anymore insane than I already have.

So the inspector - yes! We were preparing for him all weekend. Saturday Mike continued work on the gutters, though didn't get very far. First he needed more connectors. Home Depot trip 1. Then it turns out our downspouts and turn outs were the wrong size. Home Depot trip 2.

Nevermind that the warm temperatures (40 degrees) were melting all the snow off the roof... causing severe discomfort during gutter installation. Mike spent a lot of time with the push broom trying to clear it all off, but still couldn't silicone any of the joints with all the gutter parts so damp.

Needless to say, the end of the day came without much progress. In the evening, Mike had to help out a friend of his while I got to cleaning. I cleaned the basement and the entire downstairs. Sunday, Mike's riding day, I finished the cleaning upstairs and felt pretty satisfied with that.

TJ was over on Sunday too... with good news and bad news. The good news - Mike did a great job on the baby's room subfloor and there's no need to put down an additional 1/2" of ply. When the hardwood arrives - we can just slap that down and be done. Bad news - the remainder of the downstairs should be done in the same fashion. Meaning we rip up the old flooring and install 3/4 ply instead of just installing 1/2" over the old flooring.

Well, that's all well and good save for the additional cost of 3/4 vs 1/2 inch. Big cost difference, actually. Unfortunately, if we don't, the final floor will squeak and shake on the unstable base. Just another reason to hold off on hardwooding the entire downstairs. We have too many baby's room periferals to worry about.

After the floor is finished it'll be window trim, closet doors and trim, closet organizer, closet light, rug, window treatments, and don't forget all that baby stuff.

Anyway - back to inspection news. Today Mike will hopefully have finished up the gutters... and not had any more crazy problems. Also over the weekend, we picked up some 2x4's to create a temporary railing on the porch and a 4x4 to attach the bottom of our basement stair railing to. So that's all got to be done too - if not today then definitely tomorrow.

And that's it. If they're not satisfied with everything - I can at least say confidently that we've done absolutely everything we could.

More Floor

We took the official plunge last night and ordered the hardwood. 500sq feet of 3/4" cherry goodness, soon to be delivered to our local Lumber Liquidators for pickup.

I'm still unsure about the sanity of this decision. 0% financing or no 0% financing. But when it came right down to it I thought, I'm going to regret not doing this. And that thought made my final decision for me.

Plus, you know, I'm sitting here and the inauguration is on TV in the next room and I'm thinking optimistically. Cautiously, but optimistically.

Yesterday Mike finished installing the 3/4 subfloor in the baby's room. Next up, 1/2 inch! Subflooring is just madness. Especially when you're trying to stiffen an old wobbly floor. You begin to think to yourself, how sturdy does this floor need to be anyway?


Luckily, we have some 1/2" in stock. And - we had two extra sheets of 3/4" leftover, which we can return and purchase some additional 1/2 inch, plus more caulk.

The hardwood plan of attack is as follows:
We'll install the 1/2" ply in the baby's room and possibly the hallway if we have extra and hardwood those areas. The living room (and possibly the hallway if we have no extra) can wait. We can hold on to the hardwood until we can purchase more 1/2 inch.

Meanwhile - and I think I jinxed myself yesterday - I finally received that home inspection scheduling call. They'll be out a week from tomorrow. So cold or no cold, those gutters have to get up. And the whole house needs to be cleaned and tightened up. That includes the garage.

I'm not looking forward to it. The inspector sounded like a douche over the phone - a real hard ass. I'm sure they picked him out special just for us.

But no matter. I'm feeling pretty good about our progress and if they don't want to insure us - there's got to be someone out there who wants our business.