Repairs and Remodel

So as I mentioned before, our house flooded back on Mother's Day. And the repair/remodel process was VERY LONG. It took about two months before they were finally through. This wasn't because the work to be done was extensive, but rather because they only came about once a week (if that) to work on it. Apparently the restoration company was working with several different other companies to subcontract the work. So when you are dealing with so many different schedules, it seems the progress moves like molasses.

 

Here are some pictures I took to record the progress. I took these first three pictures right after we got back into the house after they had been drying the carpet and walls for a week. You can see where they had cut holes in the walls and ceiling and pulled back baseboards to help the wettest areas dry faster. If you look closely at the first picture, you can also see where the water seeped through the ceiling and left a yellowish stain.

I took these next two pictures after the sheet rock had been replaced. It hadn't been painted yet, and the putty to texture the ceiling/walls was still wet.

Since the carpet had been partially torn up already, we decided to go ahead and pay the extra cost have them replace the carpet in our dining room with laminate flooring. We have wanted to get rid of the carpet in the dining room for quite some time. So now seemed like a great opportunity to just get it done.

After we picked out the new flooring we wanted, it was several more days before they came to remove the carpet. And then it was another 2 1/2 weeks before the flooring man came to install the laminate flooring. So for all that time, our dining room table was in our living room. And our dining room looked like this.

That 2 1/2 weeks without a dining room was probably the worst stretch of this process. We couldn't use our dining room. And we had to be careful because we would often find nails that had been left on the floor. We also didn't really have a living room either because the dining room table was in the middle of it. So there was no place to really play or lay down on the floor. And the dining chairs were stored in the kitchen along with the ceiling fan. If you've seen our kitchen area, you know there's not a lot of space. So about half the kitchen floor was used to store stuff during the remodel process.

Needless to say, we felt pretty cramped during that time. Not to mention that our furniture upstairs in our bedroom was still crowded around our bed. It had been moved away from the walls and hadn't been put back yet because the carpet padding needed to be replaced first. So many times during those two months I felt like I was living in an episode of "Hoarders." Our house seemed like an obstacle course. Definitely not an ideal situation for a toddler and a baby.

We were so excited when they finally replaced the dining room floor! Leah "skated" all over the new laminate floor. And then when we moved the dining room table out of the living room, she ran all over living room carpet just because she could.

We have really enjoyed having this laminate floor. But you can definitely see all the crumbs Leah leaves behind after she eats. I can only imagine how dirty the carpet was with all the crumbs that were getting lost in it after meals with a toddler.

Doesn't it look good! After the floor was replaced, then they could paint walls, replace padding and clean the carpets. It all looked so good when it was done. It almost made all the hassle over the previous two months worth it.