Our "New" Home

When we got back from Christmas vacation, we were met with an unexpected surprise ... a pipe underneath one of our master bathroom sinks was dripping steadily. Multiply that by the 10 days we were gone, and you've got yourself a big mess!

Not only was the bathroom tile covered with water, but the carpet in our master closet was also saturated.

When a water mitigation team came over, we also discovered that the water traveled almost five feet high in our drywall, saturated many baseboards, and even leaked onto our entryway tile. For 8 days after returning from our trip, the mitigation team had heavy-duty fans and dehumidifiers running. Boy, was it noisy ...

... and not to mention, chaotic! We had to unload the contents of our closet into our master bedroom. Thankfully, we were able to sleep the next month or so in our guest bedroom. (And since we had just been on vacation, we could just live out of our suitcases for a while longer ...)

At first, we unloaded the contents of our under-stair storage closet (which was also filled with water) into our entry way. When we realized that getting rid of the water was not going to be a quick fix, we took a lot of this stuff into the garage.

Crazy how a little water created such a huge problem! We're so thankful for home owner's insurance! They covered the water mitigation team and all of the repairs after we paid our deductible. Most of the repairs were nothing exciting -- drywall patching, painting, new baseboards, and replacing some wood that wouldn't fully dry out.

But the silver lining of all of these water issues was that, since the water leak caused the entry way tiles to become "unbonded," we got brand new tile in our entry way. Ian watched with interest as the guys pounded on the tile with sledgehammers. He asked if he could get his hammer and help the guys!

He loved watching the tile crack as he hammered it!

After a Ian took a few hammer swings, Ryan, Ian, and Kim watched the rest of the demolition process from afar. :)

Here's the "after" picture ... We LOVE the new tile!

We also had the tile guys continue their work in the dining room,

laundry room, and kitchen. It's so nice to have a continuous floor covering now!

And the other "bonus" of the water issues was that, in having to rebuild the vanity where the leak was, we also got brand new (granite) countertops. What an upgrade from our (old) cultured marble ones!

We also picked out some new bronze hardware -- faucets and cabinet/drawer pulls.

Now, all that's left is getting our carpet replaced. This is the one home improvement project that we were actually planning to do this year. We hope to get the new carpet installed in our living room, bedrooms, stairway, and hallway in the next week or so.

We wouldn't wish water leaks on anyone. It's certainly been a crazy, chaotic past seven weeks. BUT ... it could have been MUCH worse. (We've since heard horror stories of leaks that happened upstairs while people were out of town. Our downstairs leak didn't cause nearly as much damage as that would have.) And, now that we're past the mess, it IS nice to have parts of our house look brand new!

Now you'll officially need to come visit us to check out the changes yourself! :)