A Murphy Visit; Rain in the Bedroom

If you remember from the last post we are beginning the basement bathroom remodel.  We had those three leaks in the basement that are finally repaired.  All of the supplies for the remodeling job are purchased and the evening before we were to start we hear our son yell, “Dad, it is raining in my bedroom!”  Murphy decided to come back for a visit, I think.  This particular bedroom is already missing a good portion of two walls already from the previous leaks.

Let me say up front, “God has been abundantly providing for us financially lately!”  You will see that if you read the Melting Expenses post below.  We also just received our tax return and paid off a few things as well as buy the supplies for the bathroom remodel.  We know the Lord is good and not only good but abundant in his provision!  God is not surprised by what is happening now.  That being noted…….. here is the run down of the last couple of days.

Almost every towel in the house was used to try and dry the remaining water that was flowing and to sop up the once again drenched carpet.  Thankfully, we have an ugly drop down ceiling in the basement.  Hubby was able to move the ceiling tile and reach up to see if he could determine where the water was coming from.  He found a large ice-cycle in the floor/ceiling between the upstairs and downstairs. (son’s room is in the basement)  He them placed a call to our home insurer.

We soon had a couple of men shoveling the top of our house and breaking up the ice dam believed to have caused the damage.  The water damage mitigatory then came out to access the situation.  The report is this……..

Ice damming caused the water to back up between the wood siding of the house and the outer wall.  This ran along the outside until it reached the basement level and found the dryer vent where the moisture then moved inside the house.  The ice melted in the heat of the house and began pouring down the wall and dripping from the ceiling.  We have the entire outer wall in my son’s room which needs to be gutted, dried out, and replaced.  That makes wall number 3 in his room!  Not only that but it looks like our roof (only 1 1/2 years old) will need to be completely replaced.  It appears that the previous owner used a questionable company to replace the roof.  This company is no longer in business, therefore no warranty.  They used the cheap kind of ice water shield and it looks as if that was not even installed correctly.   We will know more next week when our reputable roofer comes out to take a look.

So we have all of this to take care of now, finish the bathroom remodel, and Oh Yeah, my hubby leaves in 5 weeks!!!!

Murphy, thank you for stopping by, thank you for giving us another opportunity to trust in my Lord, now please go bother someone else! LOL

A Bathroom I Love

A few weeks ago I posted photos of our BEFORE shots of the main bathroom.  If you need a refresher or for comparison sake want another look, here are the BEFORE photos.   We are mostly finished.  In fact, the rest (easy part) will probably take us longer to get to just for the lack of motivation and time.  We have to put coverings over the cabinets and paint the ceiling.  So please ignore the open cabinets with all of the construction supplies in them!   Here are the AFTER shots and a good look at our new bathroom!  I did the paint job(you can’t really tell but it is a green color) but hubby did the rest.  He did an amazing job!  I am so proud of him!!

our newly remodeled bathroom

new lighting, mirrors, paint, sinks, and tile countertop

new white bathtub

white bathtub--tile all around & to the ceiling

new tile floor

new sinks with tile mosaic

Bathroom Grandma Would Love

The last year has been full of remodeling projects on our home.  We have all new flooring and paint (except for the bathrooms).  We remodeled the kitchen, dining area,  and the office.   We also fixed the walkway out back and put in stone steps.  We have since moved on to the main bathroom!  It is a bathroom that grandma would have loved back in the day with baby blue sinks, tub, and toilet.  Really out of date today though!!  It came complete with big brown framed mirrors with plastic frosted medicine cabinets and dangling, spiked, glass ball lighting!  The bathroom has been under construction for the last two weeks and we are getting closer to having a finished product to show you.  We have replaced all of the “blue” with new “white”, replaced the lights and mirrors, and have painted.  The cabinet doors will be changed and there is a MAJOR amount of tiling going on too.  I thought I should share our before pictures  a few days in advance so you can have time to soak in what we have been using for the last year.  The changes hubby is making in this bathroom is enormous!

So without further ado….here are the BEFORE photos!

The Latest Remodel

Many months ago we started on a remodel of our office area.  We took quite a bit of time on the office and it has been slow getting the photos on here but I have finally decided to do just that.  We were going to add built in book shelves but we decided the money could be better spent else where for now.  We opted to just put book shelves in the room.  It was a difference of about $1700 so I think it was a good choice!!!  That is a lot of money to save.  Maybe someday in the future we will add built ins after all of the other projects have been tackled!

Here are the BEFORE photos:

Entering the Office

Breaking into the alcove/closet area

ugly light

Nasty floor & walls

Now for the AFTER photos:

Entering the Office

bookshelves

Alcove/closet--a bit messy--eventually we will have a desk under the lights

New wood floor

Pretty Light

Sooooo, what do you think?  Improved??????

Finished Kitchen

We still have trim around the cabinets and baseboards to do. Outlet covers and handles for the cabinets to finish but other than that it is working. It is still a small space so the photos do not do it justice but it really seems so much bigger and looks beautiful (at least we think so and everyone says so). ) The wall we took out, we were told by several people that it was not a load bearing wall, then our neighbor who is a contractor told us it was. That is where the beam across the ceiling came from, it is holding up the roof. We actually like it, it brings more dimension to the room and another accent wall. PLUS it is easy to explain to people that that is where the wall used to be! We added 2 feet to the kitchen by taking it out and moving the pony wall.

Construction

These first two photos are of the family putting up the pony wall.

There was gas, electrical, and plumbing that all needed to be done. As far as the gas and plumbing went, we are now very thankful for the not so pretty drop down ceiling in the basement. It was a blessing and made things so much easier!

We had everyone sign the inside of the pony wall before we finished it!

The next two photos are of my hubby texturing the walls. What boy doesn’t like to play in the mud???

Putting in the wood flooring.