On the morning of October 12, Susan and I woke up to discover roughly an inch of standing water in half of our house. Many of you have asked how things have been going and so here is a quick update, along with a mini-tour of Floodville.

The week of the flood, a company (Serve Pro) came out to “stop the bleeding” and clean up the mess. After pulling wet carpet, they removed the baseboards from half of our house, cut out affected sheetrock, and removed parts of our insulation. Then they “cooked our house” (my phrase) by setting up large dehumidifiers, heaters, and more than 40 fans for roughly a week. The temperature inside our house was over 100 degrees, so we spent several days in a local hotel.

While the house was being cooked, I had to empty most of the shelves in my home office which were filled floor-to-ceiling with toys, collectibles, books, papers, and all sorts of stuff. Don’t worry, I found a place for it all in our front room.

After the first week, things slowed down. Contractors arrived to take measurements and give estimates for the repairs. We need carpet replaced in our primary bedroom and closet along with my home office and closet. They’ll be replacing all the damaged baseboards, readding insulation, repairing drywall, and painting all the affected areas. For the curious, the estimate for all that is about $17,000. That does not include the $15,000 for the initial disaster repair. Thank goodness for home insurance.

The repair contractors are scheduled to begin work today (November 4). This is what my home office currently looks like.

But Rob, I hear you asking. Where did the rest of your things go? No worries, everything that I need and use on a regular basis has been conveniently relocated into a gigantic pile out in my workshop.

All of our bedroom furniture was ruined and so it went to Habitat for Humanity who can fix it or sell it as is. My current dresser is a rolling plastic cart and my nightstand is a TV stand. Also, I think there may be ghosts in the walls because every night our cat Carol goes to where the drywall has been removed and scratches at it and meows as if she’s either trying to keep something out or let something in. I’ve watched enough horror movies to know that either one is a bad deal.

So, that’s where we are today. Susan is on a trip out of the country this week. Hopefully the contractors get everything done while she’s away so she can come back to fresh repairs. The carpet installers are scheduled for next week (November 11) and after that all that will remain is assembling new bedroom furniture and moving multiple cubic tons worth of stuff back to where it goes.