House and the Furry Herd - and a visitor...

As of this morning I have all of my refinished furniture and the painting is done. The floor is installed, carpet installed and all the small things fixed.

They did never manage to paint the wood under the counter black to match the other pieces (or even completely peel off the black plastic that was on the piece they put under there) but I'm ready for them to be done and I got half of my kitchen painted in the process so I figure I can manage to paint the piece black. (the wall under the cabinets you see here is the last of the purple).

I still need to replace the stuff that keeps the front door from leaking. I can't remember what it's called but it seems that it's keeping the front door from closing well. The lock box on the doorknob doesn't help. That scraped off some of the paint on the front door, but I'm just going to deal with that as well. I don't think it's that noticeable. Certainly there is plenty of cleaning that could be done prior to worrying about a paint chip.

Overall, it looks pretty nice. I just need to finish unpacking things. My plan is to get everything unpacked so I can get the space in the garage to move my current kitchen table in there - so that I can purchase the new kitchen table. State Farm got me a check to cover the table in about 3 days. That was nice at least.

I've been changing out the outlet and switch covers in parts of the house to kind of 'dress' things up.

My sister was out of town this weekend and Dan spent most of the weekend in Raleigh with me. He also brought Squiggy to Raleigh to hang out with all my kitties. She did surprisingly well. She was cautious and there were a few 'Mexican Stand-off's' with Squiggy and Peepin, but there was no hiding and no mega fights.

It has been determined that Widget (aka, 'Giant Cat') is a bit of a bully as he seems to like to chase other cats around the house to the point where they are made uncomfortable. My sister's dog, Ash, also has this bad habit of staring down cats and getting too close and following too much...but he was kicked in the head by a horse so I am pretty sure it isn't malicious. Just stupidity.

Squiggy took to the stairs for a little while. It seemed her goal was to prevent travel up or down the stairs. Dexter just jumped over her. Peepin eventually made a run for it and Squiggy moved back to her perch on the living room chair.

With the house being re-done and Cosmo still having those bad habits, his new home is the garage when he's not being supervised in the house. Tsu and Cosmo are close and she likes to spend time in the garage with him. I think she is also still a little cautious around the dogs. Although Tucker does behave herself fairly well.

The pictures I have of the house don't have the dining room table and the chairs that were returned on Friday, but they do look very nice. In the dining room picture you can see a blue pot up on the top shelf on the wall - fairly close to the ceiling.

Dexter and Lli were behaving like a herd of elephants on Tuesday and somehow managed to knock down that pot and break it. Sadly that is/was my favorite piece of pottery (I collect pottery) and the most expensive piece I've ever purchased. The four pieces around it were all of $15 - $35 each and none of those were broken.

The pot was up there because for whatever reason I thought a wall shelf that high was probably the safest place in the house. Appears I was wrong. After I stopped crying I glued it back together. Dan and I are going to Sedona in April and I think that's were I found that pot there. I have found lots of nice pottery there in the past, but this time I'll see if they have anything I can afford by the same artist. I used to have a business card with the name but I can't seem to find it now. Hopefully there will be something there in a gallery and I will at least have a choice.

Early the next morning they knocked over the fire grate during one of their chase scenes. I am glad they are playing and being kittens and having fun - but I do wish they could keep it on the floor.
Last night Dan and I went to see Wendy and Lucy at the Chelsea Theatre in Chapel Hill so I stayed with Dan. I didn't get any frantic calls or emails but basically I don't know what (if anything) they broke yesterday. Lli is really quite the little jumper. I'm going to have to hobble her if she doesn't watch it. That's why they make kittens so cute - so when they do bad things and destroy your home you can't stay angry very long.

Anyway, it appears that things are coming together at home. Now it's up to me to get things unpacked and organized. At least that's something I can do on my own time frame. One thing the restoration company and their contractors never seemed to get down was letting me know when they would be coming to the house to do work. At least no one will be showing up as I am walking out the door in the morning with questions and such so that I'm late to work. They seemed to time that pretty well and I suspect my boss is just about sick of it.



Well, that's about it. As Dan likes to say on his blog:

'more later'....

Merry Christmas?

Friday night my sister came home to find water all over the downstairs and coming from the light fixture in the kitchen. My friends husband, Ambiorix and my sister did their best to clean up the water they found, but by the time I got home last night it was clear the situation was bad.

The ceiling was sagging and I could feel that the entire living room carpet was wet, the laminate hardwood flooring was swelling at the seams from my dining room all the way around to my kitchen, there were dark spots on the ceiling that indicated that the spare room also had water damage and there was water, enough that it squished when I walked on it, in the master bedroom in what seems like a 6 foot radius from the bathroom.

This morning I called State Farm to file a claim. State Farm was great, and someone was here within an hour evaluating the damage. They told me that with State Farm they actually do the work to dry everything out and then submit the bill to State Farm, I only had to pay my deductible.
They are removing the ceiling in the kitchen under the bathroom and part of the bedroom. They will also be removing all the flooring downstairs. Upstairs the tile will be removed from the bathroom and the toilet detached. The carpet in the living room and bedrooms will need to be pulled back, the carpet pad removed and they carpet may need to be replaced.

Because of the fact that I have seamless flooring in my downstairs and the ceiling downstairs is one piece, they will need to replace / refinish the entire downstairs and the entire floor will need to be replaced. They have also had to remove all the trim and crown moulding, will need to remove the baseboards upstairs.









I am told it will take approximately 3 to 5 days to dry. Drying involves these huge fans that I am told sound like a jet engine and dehumidifiers and so on. They will be running 24 hours a day and the company will come out to check the progress every day.

Once it is dry, the contractors come in and begin to make estimates and I will need to pick out replacement materials like tile, paint, flooring and possibly carpet. I have no idea how long that will take. Certainly it's going to be a pain, but I do have the option of paying for 'upgrades' like improved flooring, knock down ceilings etc. So even though it will be a major hassle that could last for weeks, it seems that at least I will get something out of it.

The guy that showed up today said that State Farm is the best company they work for. I hope he's right I also need to make an inventory of personal items to be replaced. One of those items may very well be my dining room table. There were some library books on the table that are soaking wet and Martha had some electronics up there that may not be salvageable. Unfortunately I also lost a few irreplaceable items including some Christmas ornaments that were my grandmothers, some I made as a child and several of my 'annual' Christmas ornaments. I'm sad, but it could be worse.

State Farm just called and got the details, I'm supposed to find a like / kind replacement price for my table and they gave me my claim ID# and some contact numbers. I hope this is less painful than I'm worried it will be.

They will still be ripping stuff up for the rest of the day, and as they find more water damage they will let me know what I need to move. We already had to get all the pictures off the wall because the fans are pretty powerful and can blow stuff off the walls. I've also moved all the pottery and other art so that it won't be damaged. They haven't gotten upstairs yet. That will another round of exciting surprises I suppose....