We’ve finally been inducted into the exclusive, underground homeowner’s club and our platinum membership card is already in the mail. You’ll know you’re “in” when you’re no longer planning your next vacation but rather how much you’ll have to pay a contractor for new drywall installation.
As winter thawed, the ice dams in the gutter over our TV room started to melt backward towards the house. Unfortunately, there were two gaps in the flashing that allowed that trickle of water to flow into the walls. (Yum.) So, apparently, there is good reason to clean out your gutters regularly.
March and April unfolded, and my scary-good sense of smell sniffed out a funk behind the leftover 1970s paneling that no one else could detect. Needless to say, the stink quickly went from an annoying odor to a major tear-out of three walls, new drywall, gutter and window repair, etc.
We went from panic (me), to antsyness (me), to demolition (Steve the builder), to acceptance (Matt) as we dealt with an unexpected home repair. I do feel like a more accomplished homeowner, yes. But, now I am left with this unknowing panic. What else am I missing or not smelling? Do I need to sniff the entire interior of our house?
I now drive around the neighborhood and check out how sophisticated other people’s gutters are. I listen for leaks. I peer at the integrity of caulk around the tub. Seriously, this all came about because of my nose. I’m sure that eventually someone would have come to our home and asked, “Dude, what’s that smell?” But, we caught it early because of me and my olfactory system.
I carry on, though, in my obsessive plight. We did save some money by painting the trim and walls ourselves (myself). The process was long and arduous. In total, it took me over a week because I could only manage to do two hours each night after dinner prep, cooking, cleanup, laundry, etc. But, I did it, and we won’t mention the defeated tears that occurred in the interim. We have Wilmington Tan walls, and they are lovely.
So, the morning after I finished the room, we had a scheduled delivery of a washing machine to replace the dilapidated one rusting in our basement. The guys decided to shut off the water supply to the entire house to hook up the washer. In order to completely drain the line, he asked me to flush all the toilets upstairs and turn on a couple faucets. Unfortunately, he neglected to tell me when he was turning the main water line back on. While I was on the second floor attending to Lolo, the sink on the first floor was flooding the first floor bathroom and raining down into the basement. When I walked down to the basement to see how everything was going, they looked at the water gushing and said, “Something’s wrong.” As soon as I realized what was happening, I raced upstairs, put Lolo back in her crib, and grabbed the first towels I could find. In my nice jeans on my hands and knees, I began to sop up water frenetically just imagining the possibilities of disaster that this could cause. I began to sob in an extremely pathetic way. It wasn’t pretty and the delivery guys were a little taken aback.
In the end, the washer was hooked up. I had my contractor come to look at the floors and called the delivery company about possibly filing a claim if the slats started to buckle. But, I got the tears out and took care of business.
The very next morning (which was Saturday of course), the trash guys took our trash from the bins as usual and proceeded to drag them along the entire length of my neighbor’s driveway to the truck. Unfortunately for me, he was dragging one of the bags that had the discards from my painting escapade. Leftover white paint from a “trim cup” spilled in a perfect line down the asphalt all the way to the street.
Inside, I laughed a hysterical cackle. How else could I top off the week? In my pink and white “heart” pajamas, I put on my rain boots and set to scrubbing the driveway next door with an old mop head and bucket. It was perfect. Priceless even.
The paint did come up and the problem was solved, but not before giving the neighbors a very perplexing show.
stinkerbean 