Destruction

Here’s a short rundown of our week:

• Monday  - Due to the swamp cooler overflowing and leaking in the roof, there is some kind of electrical short.  Melinda goes to shower and discovers that the water is conducting electricity.  Fearing that we would just keep showering with electrified water, Arden installs a new GFI circuit for us. Now the lights don’t work in kitchen, bathroom, and reading room. However we can now shower without getting electrocuted.
• Tuesday – We break the water main while digging out the window well. Though Scott and Melinda bail valiantly, some water and mud still gets into the basement. After the water company turns off the water, Laird saves us by patching up the pipe.
• Wednesday – Arden very graciously takes over the management of our reconstruction project.  He was trying to let us manage on our own I think, but now that his grandchildren’s lives are in danger he must get involved. There is much rejoicing.
• Thursday – Thursday was a blur.  What did happen?
• Friday – I have the day off, so Scott and I cleared out the basement and start some serious demolition.  We moved our old ghetto couch and chair to the back porch, and now we have a redneck patio set.

The scope of our little remodel has changed from just enlarging a couple of basement windows and some new walls to completely redoing the electrical, water, gas, and heating/cooling system and framing and insulating the outside walls. Of course, we’ve read This Old House enough to know that this always happens, but still it wasn’t quite in our plans.

Here is Lisette’s old room. (Sorry Mom and Dad, we hope you don’t mind the new accomodations when you visit in a couple of weeks!) and our cozy downstairs family room.

Miles is showing his brother (Ian, previously known as ‘Structini) how it’s really done.  Here is the laundry room which is currently one of the nicer room downstairs. (Notice the water on the floor. Hmm, drain overflow again. We’ll have Apollo Rooter come check it out this week.)

 

The punctured water main pipe. (See what a pickax can do!), and our new outdoor living room (which is about 25 degrees cooler than the inside living room).

 

Rubble and old furniture. We hope the neighbors don’t mind. And we thought a 50-year-old house was new enough to avoid all of this!

      

We are going to send the kids downtown to sing on the street corners as a fundraising activity.  If you see them, please be generous!