Aftermath

I just paid the final bill for the repairs to the flooded rent house. I haven't totaled up all the receipts yet, but I'm guessing that final figure is well north of $5,000.00 for the project. For this nominal sum, I was able to replace about 500 square feet of sub-floors, carpet, and vinyl. It also covered a new bathtub-shower, three interior doors, some drywall, new trim, and a dumpster to haul all the trash away. Oh, and all the plumbing (including all the faucets) were replaced too. It turns out the freeze was much worse than we originally thought. And, the final figure includes labor too; aside from some demo, I didn't do jack. I'm okay with that.

That being said, I think that once I finish up finals in couple of weeks, this house is going to go up for sale. I think I've overdosed on home improvement for the foreseeable future.

A Good, Old Fashioned Disaster

See, when things go wrong, it is you housebloggers that I think about. A couple weeks back, we had a nasty cold snap. It was below 25 degrees for about a week here in Arkansas. My renter was good and left the faucets dripping, but when it's that cold and the house doesn't have real insulation, it just isn't enough sometimes. Oh, and the renter wasn't home when this happened.

They discovered it when the neighbors called because they were concerned about the lake in the yard.


Note, the builders of this gem of a house decked the floors with chip-board. On the upside, this probably saved the whole house from flooding. Once the floors in the bedrooms were ruined, the water drained straight through it and into the crawlspace.

Some of the tear out heaped in the carport.



Condensation on the ceiling from all that lovely moisture.

Oh, and did I mention that our insurance doesn't cover this kind of damage. Driving rain? Fire? Tornado? Yes. Burst pipe in the bathroom? No.

So, this is all out of pocket (and being documented for a monster tax write-off next year). So far, all new plumbing, new bathtub, new sub-floors (approximately 400-500 square feet), new carpet, new vinyl, new drywall, three new doors, and . . . counting.

On the upside, this should all be finished next week because I hired the whole bleeding mess out. See! I learned something!

But plumbing is still the Devil.

Work Hard, Play Hard

Friends, Romans, countrymen, beloved readers, as such an intelligent collection humanity, you have probable deduced that I've been quite busy from the utter lack of posts. Fortunately, we did have some fun. With a few exceptions, the weekend was one long orgasm. Well, maybe that is overstating it a bit?

Last week the wife and I attended a Day Job extra-curricular black-tie event which was quite nice. I mean, you have to try to have a bad time when there are several open bars, free food, and a chance to dance with a good looking woman in a sexy red dress. Following on the heels of this event, we attended an office Christmas party sponsored by my wife's employer. Yes, I know it is March and we are ever so much closer to the resurrection than the glorious birth, but there is something cool about a March Christmas party in a Happy Un-Birthday way.

And, I caught up on a lot of sleep. This is particularly good since I won't have another chance to sleep until May or June, maybe.

I meant to take photos last night, but I was too absorbed in my work to remember. Oops. There is not too much to see anyhow. The foyer ceiling is two-thirds de-tacked and scraped clean. I should finish that tonight. The laundry room is moving along too. The tub surround is painted and the floor is fully prepped for a good sanding tonight. In a perfect world, I'll get a coat of stain on it too.

As we inevitable move towards our doomsday deadline, I've got Kenny and Burt lined up to do a week's worth of work in mid-April to help wrap things up on time (?).

In an attempt to spice things up a bit, I've been working some over time on the Day Job, driving all over the state in a car with no transmission, and . . . Well, I lost the rest of that thought.


Now, I'll be in good shape if I can figure out where the zombie hid my caulk gun.