Well, time has passed and our wounds are healing. We've contemplated many paths before deciding on the road to ultimately take. The number one thing was to keep our family safe.
This is was our first home... Do we leave the memories behind and start somewhere new or fix the house and try to sell it when we are able?
We kept asking ourselves, "Would we be able to financially start over? Would we be stuck with a home that we couldn't fix? Would this crazy situation ever happen again? Is our family safe?"
We find ourselves, these days, worrying every time it rains.
I refused to go back for weeks. "I wont live there, Brett", I said over and over again. Emotions were high to say the least.
Then, after reviewing our options, and reviewing the options, we found our only option would be to go back. After coming to terms with that we started planning.
The southern Baptists came in and cleaned the house out for us for free, which was absolutely amazing since the bid we received was $30,000.00 to clean the house out!
As we starting the process, frustration set in. One thing after another went wrong. Our home wasn't to code; we had major foundation issues that weren't covered by insurance. We began to second-guess ourselves.
This is was our first home... Do we leave the memories behind and start somewhere new or fix the house and try to sell it when we are able?
We kept asking ourselves, "Would we be able to financially start over? Would we be stuck with a home that we couldn't fix? Would this crazy situation ever happen again? Is our family safe?"
We find ourselves, these days, worrying every time it rains.
I refused to go back for weeks. "I wont live there, Brett", I said over and over again. Emotions were high to say the least.
Then, after reviewing our options, and reviewing the options, we found our only option would be to go back. After coming to terms with that we started planning.
The southern Baptists came in and cleaned the house out for us for free, which was absolutely amazing since the bid we received was $30,000.00 to clean the house out!
As we starting the process, frustration set in. One thing after another went wrong. Our home wasn't to code; we had major foundation issues that weren't covered by insurance. We began to second-guess ourselves.
After the multitudes of people and organizations that came to our rescue we decided to stick with the plan of rebuilding. Our biggest obstacle was the foundation and paying to get it done. After all the bids and ideas to fix the issue we landed with RamJack. They seemed the most logical and cost effective with our issue. Basically, we had two walls in the basement caving in. You can see the main wall in the picture below. They had to excavate 12 feet down around our house and pull those walls straight. This ended up being quite an interesting process to watch.
After the foundation was fixed we were a go in all the other areas. Brett and some close friends & family spent many hours cleaning and taking out additional drywall. Brett said the worst part was taking the drywall out of the ceilings upstairs. He came home covered in attic insulation every night for over a week. Our handy dandy plumber, Tim Smothers (my step father) was there all day everyday for weeks redoing all the plumbing and tearing out electric cords. The electrician came out and rewired the entire upstairs and placed a new breaker box in downstairs for us. The HVAC people came in and an all new system had to be run through the house and the furnace and AC had to be replaced. I mean when it comes down to it there is a lot that goes into a home; not just floors and walls.It's crazy that it's the little things that seem to add up to cost the most. The subfloors that was left after the flood were so warped, we decided to place new subfloors over them. So new subfloors went down and you as you can tell Matt Scheer was was to excited.
Brett spent every day after work and weekends getting the entire top floor done. Next up was the insulation in the walls, which was one of the craziest experiences to watch. We decided on spraying it in, which all of our neighbors where doing, so we can just toss that up to peer pressure...but it was beautiful. I mean BEAUTIFUL. Then came the day that Brett and I had been waiting for... DRYWALL. To finally see it go up was like a weight was lifted off our shoulders. Who could imagine the amount of joy that would come from that final nail in the new drywall. Brett came home like it was Christmas morning jumping for joy, "DRYWALL IS DONE, ITS DONE!". He was so happy.
You can see there in the photo the pretty insulation I was talking about earlier. John, Brett's cousin, has helped so much. Here he is (above) helping hang the drywall and doing an amazing job. The biggest heartfelt thank you to these men for going over and beyond for us.
*update here is the insulation before drywall.
Well on we go one day at a time.
Please feel free to leave any comments.
Please feel free to leave any comments.