Good bye laminate floors

Last Thursday morning, Kevin went down to feed the dogs at 6 a.m.  He quickly came back upstairs, very angry, and said, "The basement is full of water."

He then disappeared back downstairs.

I went down to find him mopping up water in the main room.  You know, the one we'd finished remodeling a little over a year ago.  The floor was soaked.  Laminate floor + lots of water = disaster.

Also soaked were the bathroom floor, and both bedroom floors.  But where did the water come from?  The main floor bathrooms are both over the garage.  The garage was dry.  We checked the middle bedroom, because the kitchen drain and the laundry room are above it.  Dry ceiling and walls.  That left the basement bathroom.  But no water was running in there.

Finally, through process of elimination, we decided it had to have been the toilet.  The top of the toilet was wet, but it wasn't running over, and the water level was normal.  Kev flushed it, it flushed just fine.  We decided it had to have been plugged and eventually, after running over for hours, resolved itself.  Either that or the dogs did something.

Poor Miss Kat, she was blamed for the fiasco.

Poor us, we had a mess on our hands.

 See the swollen seams?

 Here, the trim bowed.

 The floor in the middle bedroom

The floor in Miss Kat's room.  (Yes, she's a pig.  she had stuff all.over.the.floor.)

I contacted our insurance company.  An Adjuster came out on Monday.  I stayed home from work to visit with him.  All went well, we're set with insurance to replace it all.

On that same Monday morning, around 6:20, Kevin came rushing back into the bedroom, turned on lights, started throwing clothes around, and said, "We just had a pipe burst. I'm sorry, but I had to turn off the water."

What?

Yes, it was -4 outside.  Yes, a water pipe broke in the wall by the stairs.  He just happened to be on the stairs and heard it break.  His quick thinking saved us from MORE water damage.

But, this meant that I'd be home all day without water.  Which meant no bath for me.  It also meant no laundry as well!

But, we're prepared.  I keep bottled water, and I keep one of the water coolers full in the garage.  So I had water.  Kev repaired the pipe that night and put extra insulation in the wall.  We've ripped out the carpet and the laminate floor.  We're now deciding just what to put down now.

I think we've both agreed that we won't put laminate down again.  While it's pretty, the basement was colder this winter.  We really think we need that insulation aspect of carpet. Miss Kat wants laminate in her bedroom, and we might do that--simply because it's a small area and we think we can salvage enough to do her room.  

But for the main living area...we're leaning to carpet tiles at this point.

Who knows.  All I know is I'm going to miss my wood floors.  I also really  hope that we are DONE with water issues!