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!

Countertops...check!

Miracle of all miracles, we finished putting down our new counter tops.  Formica is down.  New edging is on and stained.  It's finally a functioning kitchen again!

 This is the bar area where it meets the west wall.  Here you can see the finished shelf Kev built.

 The sink area... note the nice wood looking back splash!

 Over by the stove.  (Yes, that's two new loaves of homemade bread on the counter.)

 Here's a close-up of how we finished the front edge of the counter top.  It's a wee bit distressed and jagged.  On purpose!

The cabinet on the left is one Kevin built me years ago.  We stained it to better match the edge of the new counter tops.

And, we're trying to decide about staining the cabinets.  The doors and the fronts won't be a problem--they are solid wood.  But the sides of the cabinets...they aren't wood.  They are thin plywood covered with vinyl.  So, do I paint that vinyl to match my wall color (to be determined.  I'm still thinking of leaving it green.)  Or do we spend MORE money on cabinets that I hope will be temporary.  Right now, Kev's leaning toward leaving the cabinets alone and not re-staining them.  I was ready to stain them, until this past Thursday.  (that post is above.)

I think we'll worry about the basement, and then we'll come back to the kitchen and make a final decision about whether or not to stain the cabinet fronts.  (But I'm always open to advice and ideas!)

The finished Fireplace

Well, once again Kevin proved me wrong.  He actually finished the fireplace on December 20.  Since we were celebrating Christmas with family on the 23rd, I was relieved.  He modified the design a great deal since our floor plan is unique.  The fireplace sits in a corner and is angled.  That required us to modify the web image that sparked Kev's imagination.

We used pine to tie the fireplace with the stairs. Kev had the perfect piece left to use for the mantle.  It's three inches thick, just like the steps and the banister rail.  Since  it is the outside edge of the tree, it curves and isn't square, but it's awfully pretty.  Kev then built the lower shelves to hold our DVD player and Satellite receiver, moving them from the east wall, as seen below.

  

With the addition of the upper shelves, he created more space for me to showcase items.  Those shelves are "disappearing" shelves simply because we didn't want to put a side up against that angled wall.  It would have looked...odd.  

I like the firewood storage.  I thought about asking him to make one shelf on this side, but he veto'd that, and I think he was right.  We rocked the fireplace together.  It took about 5 hours.  I struggled with the layout of the rocks because I kept wanting them to fit perfectly.  They don't.  Kev did a lot of trimming to make them fill the space and they've grown on me...or I've let go of my idea of perfection. All in all, I'm happy with the end product.  I'm also eager to put away my Christmas decorations to see how I'm going to arrange "pretties" on the shelves.  

What's the next project?  Who knows!  It's now been a week since Kev has had anything to work on.  He's getting stir-crazy already!  We need to replace the Purple bathroom's tub and the skylight...we need to replace Kev's shower, and we need better cabinets in the kitchen.  But, I'd be happy if we didn't do anything for a few months.  I'm not sure Kevin can sit still that long!

Once again...before and after.  Quite a difference!