Our Home Renovation

Mid-day update: We started tearing off the old shingles on the garage this morning. We got about 70% done before we got into a fight with a wasps nest. Jay finally won that battle thanks to some nearby gasoline (nobody light a match near the garage now!).

We then headed over to help some people clean out their basement. They had just moved back into their house 3 weeks ago after spending everything they had fixing up the house after the flood a year ago. A year ago, the water came through and the force of the water completely blew out an entire wall in the basement. It’s taken almost a year to get the wall rebuilt and the house habitable. At 2:30 am on Tuesday, they woke up because of the intense thunder and lightning and a few minutes later the whole house shook and they realized that the newly-rebuilt wall had blown in. The house has now been condemned and they’re hoping that the city will buy the house and turn the property into a retaining pond. The house is the low point of a several mile wide valley that has been totally built up and was poorly planned. All the runoff from a large area of town converges on this house and the force of that rushing water is what blew the wall in both times. So, a bunch of people helped get what they could out of the basement - washer, dryer, furnace, water heater, etc. We started shoveling out the mud and carrying out the cinder blocks, but decided to stop and wait until the city decides whether or not they’re going to buy the house and bulldoze it.

Now, it’s a short break before we head out and drive around giving out free ice cream (again, I’ll explain later) and then head back to work on the roof. And hook up the toilet. And unclog the 30+ year-old drain. And paint the bathroom. And tear out the front sidewalk. Stay tuned for tonight’s update along with more photos.

As promised, here are some photos from the flooding this week. My brother (who is a photographer) took these photos. Thankfully, even though more rain was forecast for the past two days, very little ended up coming down. The ground is still so saturated that even the quarter-inch we got last night put a lot of water on the roads.

(Click the photos to see larger versions)

Last night we had some major rainfall - a neighbor’s gauge showed almost 6 inches this morning. News reports are saying anywhere from 4-7+ inches, depending on the area and they’re saying there were a few areas that were “off the charts” (does that mean their gauges overflowed??). Two blocks from our house, people were rescued in boats and many houses are under water. Thankfully our house is up high on a hill, so we didn’t have to worry about flooding like everyone else, but we did get around an inch of water throughout the basement which was a first. Last summer, my big project was building a media room in the basement. Walking in there this morning having water squish through my toes definitely felt strange. Our power just came back on, so it’s time to get the fans and shopvacs going. As annoying as it is to have to dry out the basement, we’re extremely lucky/blessed to not be under water, or even have more than an inch in the basement.

I checked the Sheridan House this morning and it was fine - there was a bit more seepage than normal, but if that’s all that there is when 5+ inches comes down in a short period of time, I have no complaints.

We have some good photos which I’ll add to this post later. We also made some awesome progress on the Sheridan House yesterday which I’ll write more about later too.