A Nightmare Vacation

This past week has been a nightmare. Okay, I think this past week has been fairly awful for everyone and my situation is no better or worse than anyone else. First of all, I am very fortunate to still have a job and my boss did not make me cancel my vacation. I had to adjust my vacation plans, daily conference calls, going up to check on things, constant communication with my team. None of that stuff is the nightmare.

We were planning to have Logan’s party this weekend, my week was mapped out so that I could paint the hallway, dining room, and living room. Finish the trim and possibly go pick up our new table and chairs. Unfortunately once the virus came, we decided to cancel the party, but I figured I might as well get the painting done. I did the hallway, then prepped the walls in the other rooms. By Wednesday the dining room was done and all that was left was the living room. I set everything up in the middle of the room so that on Thursday I could get up and get to work.

I will not lie, it is definitely challenging with the family here. I am constantly yelling at Logan or Payton (or for Lindsey to come grab one of them…for some reason Logan heads right for outlets and Payton is just oblivious and would definitely press herself against the wall).

Anyways, on Thursday we got up and had breakfast. I took Samson outside, then went downstairs to grab something I would need for painting. I stepped down and immediately stepped in water. I looked around and the entire basement was flooded. We quickly realized what happened. Richland Township had sent out a notice saying they would be turning the power off for a few hours that day for some maintenance. It was pouring down rain and the sump pump was off. Ughhhh. What a mess!

I called the insurance company, but it turns out that was not covered. Cool! The upstairs part of our house was completely torn apart for painting and now there was a small lake downstairs! I decided to finish painting. The sump pump came back on and it sucked up the water. Once the painting was done, I tackled the basement. I started sucking up water with a shop-vac (Lindsey’s stepdad helped me out). We also have fans going and some dehumidifiers to dry things out.

Lindsey and I put the house back together and did some cleaning. We called ServPro and got an idea of how much it would cost for them to suck out the water and clean things up. Yeah, it was way too expensive and they also said that the carpet would almost definitely not be saved. So I made a decision to head to Lowe’s and look at flooring. I ended up buying vinyl planks and plan to redo the entire basement.

I need to remove the carpeting and honestly, I have no clue when I will have time to do it. I go back to work tomorrow and the shifts we are working are going to make it very difficult for me to find the time. I may have to pay someone to rip the carpet out (anyone have a high school kid who is bored at home right now, who wants $100?). Once the carpet is out, then I can use bleach to scrub the floor and walls in order to kill any mold and bacteria.

Before you ask, I have no clue how to install a floor. I watched videos and it only looks…somewhat difficult. The guy at Lowe’s said it is the easiest flooring to put down, but something tells me he has no idea how unskilled I am at basically everything. This will definitely be an adventure, haha.

Enjoy some of the pictures of my projects around the house…

My first project was to remove the metal light switch box because it was not deep enough to put in a new fancier switch instead of the old knob that was there. I took it out easily enough and then realized my stupidity. There was another box on the opposite side. I had to rip off a huge chunk of wall and then move the box a little higher to make it work. Then I had to patch the wall up. I did an okay job, but maybe down the road I will fix it better. 

We decided to use the same gray from the playroom for the hallway. I thought it looked really good, but Lindsey does not like it. She thinks it is too muted with the green we picked for the dining room. It looks like I will be repainting the hallway.

The top two pictures are the old robin egg blue and the bottom is the green. I really like it in the living room. It looks fantastic. One of the things I want to do at some point in life would be to add crown molding. I think that would really make the living room stand out. Again, no clue how to do it, but I will teach myself and hopefully not screw it all up. 

I also want to get a bigger for under the television. The wall is so big, it looks silly with that small one. Oh well, all in due time. 

Vacation is over, but it looks like home projects will never end for me.