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| One days contractors: painters, landscapers, plumber, and granite installers |
When
John and I arrived home we knew it was time to do some updating on our home.
Our goal was to complete all the updating before our shipment arrived.
Here was the list of things that needed to be done.
1.
Paint the entire outside and inside of our home
2.
New flooring
3.
New counter tops
4.
Update our lightening
5.
Change all our electric sockets
Five
things seem simple enough. Well...not exactly! Painting the entire
outside of the house went smooth as silk thanks to our amazing painter,
Romeo. John with some help from family finished the entire inside of the
house. I am a terrible painter and have been banned from paintbrushes but
don't worry I wasn't slacking. I was tasked with cleaning the entire house top to bottom. My brother-in-law Mike did the electric work.
We were cruising on
our to-do list when we learned our shipment was making record time. I
admit it made me nervous but I figured there was no way our shipment would
arrive in July. We were right on target for July completion when we hit a
couple of bumps. First our laminate flooring was back ordered and marble
counter tops were not properly installed. Romeo, our painter now hired
on as a contractor, came to the rescue. He did is magic and the counter
tops and back splash look amazing. There was nothing we could do about
the laminate but wait.
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| Romeo getting prepped to paint! |
At
this point John and his Dad go on a fishing trip leaving me to handle things on the
home front. Now here is where things get fun. Our contractor is on
day one of the tile work when we learn our shipment has arrived and delivery is
imminent. I seriously about died. I should be happy but I was so not
ready to add all our stuff on top of the mess from remodeling. We tried
to delay the delivery but had no luck, which meant we frantically cleaned up as
much as we could and made room to move in our stuff. At this point we
discover our oven has died so we add that to the list of things to do. I
was so happy when John returned from his trip. We went into to turbo
speed and made room for the delivery. It was not ideal but do-able. We
figured the contractors would all just have to work around each other. At
one point we had eight different people in our home.
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| Moving in our granite |
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| Shipment arrives |
Well
the shipment arrived and it was not long into the unpacking that we discovered
that our boxes were a disaster and miss labeled mess. Nothing was where
it was supposed to be. The movers were less than thrilled when I started
opening boxes and instructing them to take things to more than one room.
I expected them to be disorganized but this was far beyond what I was
expecting. It was like someone had dumped everything in your house into a
huge pile and mixed it up than used a shovel to scoop and dropped it into a box. Lots of
things were missing and broken. What was stranger was we were missing 28
boxes.
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| Mold! |
Around
3:00pm we were on the final crates when we discovered "MOLD".
Our couch was covered in it. It was at this point everything
stopped. I called our facilitator to ask for advice on what to do.
He told me to pack it all up and put it in the truck. Excuse me????
Pack IT ALL UP?? The movers did the best they could but had to quit
working at 4:00 in order to make it back to their warehouse by 5:00. We
were left with a house full of boxes. It wasn't until John and I started
unpacking the boxes that we discovered the mold was not just in the last
crate. The mold was everywhere. We called our facilitator back and
he tells us to get the moldy items out of the house as fast as possible because
it’s toxic. Lovely! John and I drag as many items into our yard as
possible. By 1:00 pm we have most of the items outside. We were
exhausted and crash for the night.
The
next morning we discover that four of the five of us are sick. Kade, who
has mild asthma, is the worse. He was so bad that he had to be sent home
from basketball camp. I am the only one left not feeling terrible.
I sound like I have been smoking but I am feeling Ok. We call the facilitator
once again who immediately gets a hold of a restoration company. The
restoration company comes to our home and discovers the mold is been spread to
almost every item. They remove all the moldy items and begin the pain
staking process of wiping everything down before it can be re-introduced into
our house. Meanwhile our contractor is busy working on the tile, which is not
turning out the way he wants. We all agree the tile needs to be pulled out
and started over. More MESS! A state of chaos is not the way I like
to live.
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| Restoration Company to the Rescue! Wiping down our 12 foot Christmas Tree limb by limb. |
The
restoration company is at our home for three very full days. Each time
they clean item we put it away. It is a slow process. By the end of
last week we are beginning to feel like our house was becoming our home again.
On Wednesday, we learn that it is time for John to go help his family harvest
wheat. He is not thirty minutes out of the driveway when we learn that
our laminate has arrived. John turns around and helps me go pick it
up. My brother Paul helps us unload the pallet and half of
laminate. Thanks, Paul! John jumps back in our car and heads for
Eastern Washington. He is now on his second day of harvesting. We were
cracking up because he feels a bit like he is on vacation right now.
Next
week the house should be finished and summer can begin! Sydney is headed
to Junior High church camp. John will be harvesting for another
week. The plan is for Kade to go over and join him on Sunday.
Brooklyn and I will stay to watch over the last of the work being done on the
house. I can't tell you how excited am I am to finally slow down and
enjoy the summer.
