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.

Unhappy Hipsters

You housebloggers might get a kick out of this. The photos are mostly from Dwell magazine. The captions are not. Pretty damn funny in my opinion. Enjoy.

The Final Walk Through, August 2009

I found these pictures on my cell phone this week. I took them during my final walk through of Devil Queen last August. Haven't seen her since.

Below is the railing the buyer's insurance company required us to install before they'd close on the deal.

Thank You

Jacqueline, thank you very much. Have a happy holidays.

Congratulations!

For those of you who may not have heard, one of our own is now Mayor-elect of Dayton, Ohio. Congratulations Gary and good luck!

Changes

Here are few things I've gotten to do since the Devil Queen sold:

1) Gone to Florida, twice.

2) Gone to New Orleans.

3) Paid off a college loan.

4) Had unexpected bills (car repairs, etc) and paid for them in full without a panic attack, woe, or selling organs on the black market.

People ask me if I miss the Queen, but so far, not so much. It's still too thrilling having a life again for me to feel sentimental. Will this change? Maybe, but probably not soon.