browser life

Nope, it's not done yet. Nope, I shouldn't be surprised. Yep, I'm gonna be broke for even longer than I had feared.

Turns out the water damage to the storage area extended all the way across the room, so we had to have two entire walls of drywall and insulation replaced in addition to the scrapbook area. The handyman guys ran air scrubbing machines to mitigate the mold and other impurities. And we found out the flooring Dan put in a year and a half ago was already falling apart due to all the moisture, so we're having it replaced with something more durable that has been properly prepped.

And we found out why the storage area had been flooding. Turns out that under the wooden deck in our back yard is an old patio slab that slopes TOWARD the house (couldn't see it until the deck was taken apart), and so all water in that area drains directly into the window well! Would cost us a fortune to have the slab removed completely, so they put up a little cement lip around the window well to get the water to roll away from it, and if that doesn't end up being sufficient, we'll have them come back in the spring, rip up the deck again and drill holes in the slab so the water will drain further away from the house.

The electrical problems we've had in the basement are more extensive than we thought. The previous homeowners obviously wired it themselves, and did it incorrectly. The poor handyman guy got zapped on Friday!

And the fuse box is labeled incorrectly, so figuring out what really controls what is an adventure. For some reason, lights in the garage and outdoors are connected to stuff in the basement?!? Anyway, we're gonna get to the bottom of the short circuits and the stuff that was supposed to be up to code but isn't.

If that weren't fun enough, there is a leak in the downstairs bathroom, and the source is apparently located behind a built-in cabinet. In re-assembling the scrapbook area, we discovered that cabinet is too water-damaged to be reused. So we're putting the desk in a different spot as it had been attached to the cabinet, and I have no idea where I'm gonna store my scrapbook supplies.

The project that was originally supposed to be two weeks has gone past three into a fourth. I'll be covering up the command center with plastic again tonight before I go to bed. Looks like I might not be online again until maybe Thursday??

I did some number crunching on the most recent figures. The earliest we will possibly get this paid off will be 2011!! YIKES!

Would like to be posting again regularly before Christmas, but can't promise anything. Such are the joys of being a homeowner.