The new normal

You know, I'd really love to say something cliche like 'Gee - I can't believe it's been almost five years since Hurricane Katrina destroyed our section of the world' - but I can't. The fact is, I have been pretty aware of every moment that has passed. Time drags. Still waiting. Forgot what we were waiting for now.

We had decided for sanity's sake to stop pushing to complete repairs on the house that we couldn't afford... Well, actually, we didn't need to stop pushing to complete those repairs because not being able to afford them did the stopping for us: What we were trying to do is stop worrying about the repairs we couldn't complete and just live. The worrying thing is much harder to stop.

At the end of March of this year we received a letter from MetLife informing us that they were not going to be renewing our wind coverage. (They call it 'wind coverage' now. Pre-Katrina they had the gall to call this coverage our 'Hurricane Policy'. It's good of them to clear up the terminology -- albeit a little late...) Dave spent the entire 30 day transition searching for replacement coverage. Very few companies were willing to offer 'wind' coverage for our address - not a lot of competition going on out there on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Eventually Dave was able to secure some specialty coverage. I'm not even sure of the exact figures because any time the exact figures are given to me I block them out like the trauma victim I have become. All I know is that our premium is somewhere around $6000 per year now. Six thousand dollars per year so that they can find some way to avoid paying us (again) in the event of an actual loss.

Wait - no - that's wrong. Our premium was somewhere around $6000 per year a couple of weeks ago. Since that time - our new insurance carrier sent out an independent inspector... I was pretty nervous about the unfinished repairs as we're in no position (see above $6000 per year...) to finish up a clump of repairs at once to satisfy the insurance company. Luckily for us - they didn't ask us to make a single repair! Nope. Instead they declared the replacement value of our home to be upwards of $451,000 - putting us on the hook for $407,000 worth of coverage (it was previously $290,000) and an additional $1700 in premiums annually. Oh yay for us!

There's not a lot of incentive here to repair or maintain the house at this point.... If we're stuck with $407,000 in coverage as is -- what happens when it's complete??

Let's follow up that happy bit of news with the discovery that we have now been placed in a high risk flood area on the FIRM map and our flood insurance premium is expected to triple at some unexpected but surely inconvenient time in the future. (Yes that's right.. the seven or eight thousand dollars above doesn't include the NFIP premium.)

Hey - did anybody see the news about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? *twitch*

In the meantime - we're going to fix our porch columns. It's an exercise in insanity. We were briefly happy to find that the only rot going on with the columns involved the trim pieces at the top of the foot of the columns -- untreated wood had been used there previously.

All we'll really have to deal with is lots of sanding and scraping and painting and a few mitered cuts. Easily done with a few minutes here and there over a few weekends. And when we're done our porches will look pretty good again... And we'll probably add $100,000 to the replacement value of our home.... And our insurance premium will go up another $1000.

Maybe we should just leave them as they are. :)

On the pegboard

I forgot to include a picture of the pegboard side of the garage with my previous update - so before I begin with our updated to-do list - here's a taste:

Before

After

Now on to the tentative to-do list for 2009 -- sure, we're getting a late start but... well - we just don't care anymore! *cackle*

Lingering Hurricane Katrina repairs in blue.

1. Replace main circuit breakers on outside of house (DONE.)
2. Brace kitchen sink in some manner other than that which was used by the 'professionals' to brace it. (DONE.)
3. Install threshold/transition between William's closet and his bedroom.
4. Replace light fixtures throughout upstairs.
5. Install ceiling light fixtures in game room/library.
6. Have skylights tinted to prevent upstairs hallway from melting.
7. Build a rabbit hutch.
8. Install dimmer switches on various light fixtures throughout the house (because we despise overhead lighting otherwise).
9. Replace rusted french doors on back porch.
10. Replace rusted ceiling fans on back porch.
11. Install ceiling fans on front porch.
12. Repair rotten column trim.
13. Repaint living room.
14. Reinstall a door for the guest bathroom.
15. Install a/c registers upstairs where the last crew not only failed to do so but also lost at least one register in question and all of the screws. Ugh.
16. Replace windows. All of them.
17. Paint the ceilings. All of them. House-wide. Ugh.
18. Make the roughed-in horrible storage room into the bathroom it was intended to be.
19. Remove broken grout and replace with caulk in all of those areas where some bonehead grouted up to dissimilar surfaces.
    
20. Touch up kitchen grout with stain (No - we never actually finished the kitchen floor. The kitchen floor made us insane. I don't want to touch up the kitchen grout with stain. Ever. But I'm putting it on this list because it just seems like I should.)
21. Replace disintegrated chandelier in foyer.
22. Paint stair rails and banisters.

Of course there's more to add to this list when everything is checked off. There's always something to add to the list when everything is checked off.... This is the nature - the very essence - of homeownership, is it not? It has certainly defined our homeownership experience thus far.... And if we're doing it wrong - it's too late to tell us now.

More to come.

At last!

We have managed to make our garage look even worse than it did when we started. I admit - I didn't think it could be done.

We've picked a nice gray for the walls to go with the cabinets that we will eventually purchase and install... and once we get past the minor sheetrock problems we'll be ready to paint the whole place.

Ah. Progress.

Garage Redo: The saga begins

After a couple of weeks of recovery - and a totally unrelated trip to the emergency room for me this past weekend... We are ready to officially begin making our garage less of an unholy mess.

In order to motivate (read: publicly humiliate) us to really roll up our sleeves on this one and get going... I present the following 'before' pictures:

The pictures only get worse from here. The patchwork look on the pictured wall represents where a pegboard once hung... where wire shelves were once anchored to the studs with thoroughly stripped 2" screws... and where the sheetrock was cut out and replaced at 4 feet following Hurricane Katrina. The clutter is just our life.

More sheer ugliness. The bench in the left-hand corner of the garage pictured here was removed by Dave just yesterday. There are no pictures of the gaping holes in the wall where said bench was once attached -- yet.

Somewhere under that pile of stuff you would find two neatly-stacked rows of packed moving boxes which represent our original plan to redo the garage in an orderly fashion.

(Yes. That is a Christmas reindeer. Yes. It's February. I know.)
This is our most-used entrance to our house. Luckily, we've grown so accustomed to conditions out in the garage that we barely notice it -- that is until we take pictures of it and publish it on the internet for all to see.

And just to lift the spirits a little -- here's a little progress. Dave has officially installed two Hyloft hanging shelves in the space above our garage door for storage. We have room for at least two more of these nifty units -- and intend to use it.

If you've ever read this blog before then you're probably aware that our first step in any project is to make an even bigger mess of the area than what we were originally trying to correct.... As you can see from these pictures -- we have completed step one.

I'm currently doing a little sheetrock repair here and there while we save up money and sell possessions so that we can afford some halfway decent cabinetry for the long (west) wall of the garage. We had originally planned on wall repairs and painting before we got started on storage - because of the budget constraints... However - the fact is that putting in the cabinets first will a) give us somewhere to store the unholy mess while we paint and b) considerably cut down on the amount of wall that needs to be painted.

As always -- more to come...

After pictures are CURSED

So we were having our usual hectic dinnertime/bedtime/we're going to be late for basketball practice nightly ritual when there was a huge bang - crash - rattle somewhere near the front door of the house. I was the first to discover this clue:

It was on the living room floor at the base of the stairs - laying in a pool of a oily black goo. It seemed like some large and forgotten Christmas ornament - but I didn't recognize it... And I wasn't sure where it came from other than the fact that it had fallen from the sky.

Just then, Dave discovered the second clue at the front door:
I was becoming convinced that these were poltergeist-driven Christmas tree ornaments when Dave pointed out the pretty brass bell. This one had its own puddle of oily black goo -- but I thought ectoplasm was greenish.....

A few minutes later as I followed a trail of black goo along the floor of the foyer it all came together in a flash. I pointed up without looking (because I was afraid to).

Yep. The chandelier in our entryway just suddenly fell apart. Woo! As for the oily black ectoplasmic goo - our only explanation is also the explanation for the horrific corrosion on the base of this light fixture: water damage. Apparently when the sewer backed up and flooded the upstairs bath and this ceiling... and again when the water from the shower seeped through the ruined floor in that bathroom and flooded this ceiling... and again when the shower was leaking... and again when the roof was leaking.... The pretty brass ball that I found on the living room floor tonight had been filling up with water all along. Ewww.

So there it is. I finally take the time to post after pictures of one of our projects... while directly below our completed project - just a subfloor away, no less - something was teetering on the brink of disintegration. CRASH!

No, Virginia. There is no such thing as an after picture. There are only so far and at the moment pictures.

Unexpected addition to the to-do list: Shop for a chandelier.

Not bad for a couple hours work

Particularly for a couple of hours after a long day at work (for Dave) or chasing five cranky children around the house (for me). And after cooking and consuming a large burrito dinner. After watching Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer at least seven times. OH - and all of this after being up for a great deal of the night before with our inconsolable (teething) one year old.

Ugh. I feel incoherent.


So here's the first peek at the carpet tile for George's room. We like it. We hope that George does too. If he doesn't that's just too bad. Actually - none of this really matters anyway... It's only a matter of weeks before we're finished and he moves in and this new floor is completely covered with dirty socks and Popular Science magazines.

More to come.

Breathe in....

Following the latest indoor rain situation I took a few days off to breathe. Despite the distracting hype over Tropical Rainstorm Fay over the weekend - we managed to get someone out to check the hot water lines and install a new hot water tank. For reasons which will remain a complete mystery - our tank decided to bust at the seam. Our friendly neighborhood plumbing expert told us the only plausible explanation is that this was due to some manufacturer's defect that decided to rear its ugly head now after however many years the tank has been in the house. Thanks, tank.

Our friendly neighborhood plumbing expert charged us around $850 for the service call, tank removal, replacement, and hauling off -- so just in case you were erroneously assuming that hurricane-inflated prices have finally leveled off around here.... There it is.

I am choosing to be happy about two things this morning:

1. The tank did not erupt and take out a wall.
2. We had the 850 bucks to get it replaced.

As for the leak through the living room ceiling -- the water discolored the tape and popped the seam along three sheets of sheetrock. We won't need to do anything too dramatic. We'll probably have to retape and mud a bit before repainting the ceiling. However, we've decided to put off repainting the ceiling til some time in the future when we are ready to repaint ALL of the ceilings. During one of our quick inspections this week we realized that we now have four downstairs rooms with badly stained ceilings and we're sure that by the time we get around to painting them we'll have more. (If you read the blog you know that I'm not being pessimistic here.... Just planning realistically.) We're going to slap some paint over the stained tape in the living room in the meantime just so it isn't quite so .... uh... ugly? Not that mismatched ceiling paint won't be ugly -- but you'll have to look harder for the ugliness when it's all some shade of white, we hope.

The price of not blogging....

Is ending up with something to blog about apparently.

Do you know what this means? That's right...

Water damage!

This time it has something to do with one of our water-heaters upstairs... What exactly we aren't sure because the emergency plumber we called to the scene never showed up tonight.

All we know is we have a soggy ceiling downstairs... And the tank upstairs was making tea-kettle noises and bulging on one side before we turned it off and shut off the water to it.

As always there are mysterious factors - this time it would be 1) the fact that immediately upon discovering the ceiling wetness and checking the tank upstairs - the drain pan was bone dry and the floor surrounding the tank sported only a nominal amount of water (definitely not enough to flood the downstairs...) and 2) after we shut down the tank the drain pan filled to about halfway - not even enough to reach the emergency drain pipe in the pan - and the water level in the pan itself has remained the same ever since... which seems to indicate that there isn't a leak in the pan.... But I could be wrong. I've been wrong before.

Tomorrow we may actually discover what really has happened. Maybe. Regardless my major-repair-cost senses are tingling and I sense a couple of new water-heaters in our future.

Current emotional state: Despondent bordering on something pathological.

Paint comes in a can, it was put there by a man...

who works in Lowe's. A man finally put my Sandy Shell Valspar Ultra Premium base paint in a can. He was wary at first and said they're not supposed to do it, but I convinced him to do it as a color match and that everything would be fine. And everything is fine except Anita and I have had no motivation to work on the house since we finished William's room. If anyone has any motivation to spare please share.

Stair Update#2: Done already

The carpet part, anyway. Having brand new carpet on the stairs reminds me that we still need to touch up and refinish parts of the staircase that either got totally neglected or merely swiped at by Dean & Crew last year.

The carpet guys graciously pose for a picture with their handiwork.

Why is it that we're always seeming to get stuff done in areas of the house that are SO hard to photograph? The pictures from downstairs looking up are as bright as I can get them without letting the flash go off and totally distorting the actual colors. As usual - I ask you to use just a little imagination. And now for the recap...

BEFORE: More specifically, before being removed but after Katrina.

ALSO BEFORE: That is, before being replaced but after being removed after Katrina.

AFTER: As in today... A true after picture.

A LITTLE MORE AFTER: After the guys left and I could go upstairs
to take a picture in the light to show the actual color and texture of the carpet on the stairs.

<< Insert a clever title involving plush carpet and stair treads here >>

I hope that my blogging absence of-late can be forgiven without much explanation because it's necessary that I just jump right into documenting our next Katrina home improvement project this morning..... And this one is strictly Katrina-related, too.

The flooring installation guy -- we'll call him Keith -- just called to ask if it would be possible for them to come out to install the carpet on the stairs this afternoon. Hmm... After three years of bare plywood treads I think I can forgive him for giving me less than two hours notice, don't you?

Let's get the before pictures rolling:


If you've read this blog before then you know the drill: I shall now pace and drink several cups of coffee while worrying that the carpet I chose for the stairs a couple weeks ago is terribly wrong. I will then spend a caffeine-fueled hour coming up with plausible reasons to justify my awful decorating choice. Then I will call Dave at work and cry. Wish me luck.

The cure for writer's block discovered: Write something.

Would you believe I had no idea that I haven't blogged anything since Monday? That it has already been very close to a week since I've been at the computer long enough to even check the date - let alone write anything or post a picture?

I had planned on starting out this post by excusing myself from absence here at DWSHKON by pointing out that I had actually posted something during the week over at our homeschool blog for the first time in almost a year.... That plan was thwarted, however, when I went to check out that blog entry a few minutes ago and discovered that it was also made this past Monday. *wince*

Okay so there's no shortage of things to do or see or write about around here. (And therein lies the problem....) At the beginning of the week I received an email from someone at CBS news alerting me to a news story that would be running during CBS Evening News with Katie Couric on Tuesday at 6:30 pm EST concerning toxic FEMA trailers - and asking for my reaction as a Katrina blogger. I did watch the news clip - and I do have an opinion ( I always have an opinion...) but I haven't had my wits about me enough to actually sit down and put it into words.
I have every intention of actually devoting a post to the story sometime in the oh-so-nebulous future... In the interim I'll just say this: We knew the trailers were toxic a long time ago. No one listened. Amazing how it suddenly becomes a story of interest when a) FEMA announces that other people in some other possibly valuable part of the country will be blessed with the same trailers in a future disaster and b) when people removed enough from the Gulf Coast actually start to experience symptoms. Moreover - so a whole lot of people agree that these trailers are health hazards... Now what? Food for thought: As of June 27, there were 4,593 FEMA trailers and mobile homes in use in South Mississippi. (Source: GCN)

What about the forever unfolding story of impending levee breaches that no one (except, oh say, the folks who get submerged when it happens) seems to care about over at New Orleans News Ladder? The same folks who didn't care before Katrina still don't care. Score one for consistency.

Then there's the startling discovery that FEMA (there's that acronym again) apparently gave away somewhere around $85 million in supplies intended for Katrina victims to... well.. not Katrina victims. "Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that they were excess to FEMA's needs; therefore, they are being excessed from FEMA's inventory," McIntyre wrote in an e-mail. (Source: CNN) FEMA's needs? Well of course FEMA didn't need them... Duh. All I can think of is back when Mom and I were volunteering for Operation Vanessa way back when and just how many people we encountered every day that really, really could have used this stuff. I'm sure the two coffee pots and four crock pots we gave away to actual Katrina victims pale in comparison to the number that were distributed to state prisons nationwide.

Oh.. and I suppose I could mention the impending third anniversary of the looming mental health crisis called Katrina.

But more on all that later....

I could spend a little while ruminating about good ol' Hurricane Bertha gyrating around in the Atlantic Ocean this week. I could get Dave to blog a follow up to the Valspar/Lowe's paint-mixing story - but it wouldn't be a very good one since we still haven't actually gotten back to Lowe's to try and have the paint mixed again. I could send a bona fide shout-out to Todd over at Home Construction Improvement for honoring us yet again with a fine blog award if I had actually had the time to sit down and choose our ten nominees... Which of course - I haven't. (In the meantime, thank you so much Todd -- you've been really good to us. I'll get a proper post together soon.)

What I will do tonight... Is update our William's room project status for all the world to see.

We finally painted, installed, caulked, and touched up the baseboard for the room. **I'm sure Dave is thrilled that I'm always including him in these home improvement pictures. It almost appears that he's doing all the work and I'm just taking pictures. I'm glad he loves me.** Severe camera flash makes the wall color look rather icky - but it was so dark in there at the time I had to resort to flash. Everyone give Dave a standing ovation for painting baseboards without the benefit of sight.

Voila! Crown painted, walls done, baseboards finished and in place.

All we have left now is changing out the rusty light fixtures and laying the carpet tile. That and uh... returning furniture to the room.. window treatments.. decorating.. and cleaning all of our supplies out of William's closet so he has somewhere to (not really) hang his clothes.

Thank you Mr. Bartos

I just wanted to post a quick follow up to my earlier post on my paint buying experience (or lack of) at Lowe's. A kind Valspar employee did in fact read the blog and posted a comment. In summary, he said that it is intended that Signature base go with Signature colors and Ultra Premium with Ultra Premium, but Lowe's should color match the paint I had requested. That's what they've done for us in the past. I will attempt to get the paint I need again this weekend armed with new knowledge from Valspar and report later.

Anita checked our receipts and found that we've purchased approximately 120 gallons of Valspar paint since Hurricane Katrina and that does not include the paint we insisted New Life use to paint the upstairs rooms. We've found that the paint blends well and can be touched up long after drying.

So, I'd like to thank Mr. Bartos of Valspar for taking the time to write and to be concerned with customer satisfaction. I find that is a rare thing these days.

Roof & Hoot both have two O's

And that's about the only thing I can think of that might tie today's two stories together. Sorry.

Great Horned Owl Photo by Keith Skinner (http://bayouvisions.com)

But late last night - somewhere close to midnight (we went out to enjoy the rare 70-degrees-in-June weather)... Dave spotted something on our then almost-completed rooftop... At first he thought the roofers left something up there for tomorrow - then he called me over to look. I recognized it immediately -- our big spooky owl friend who frequents our yard on moonlit nights. I've seen it many times over the last couple of years since Katrina.. and heard it even more.... But usually he prefers to perch at the very top of our neighbor's willow tree where it hangs over our yard. This is the first time I've seen him actually sitting on our house.

Maybe he was inspecting the new roofing job... I hope he approves.

Today is no where near 70 degrees - as you can probably tell by the heat-haze swallowing the house in this photo taken earlier this afternoon.... BUT the roof is finally complete.

We need to do a thorough visual inspection before we settle payment with our contractors tomorrow... and I'll be sure to get some better pictures of the job between now and then for the blog.

Still with the roof thing

I've given up on worrying about my plants now... They never stood a chance, I guess.
I just want the roof done.

I think - though I can't be sure because I didn't look everywhere this afternoon.. That the large section which includes the skylights is the last section to be done before our roof is complete.
I just want it not to leak.

More to come. Stay tuned.

Don't tell me what you can't do

My favorite saying from Lost is "Don't tell me what I can't do." Those of you who watch the show know these words are said at various times with various inflections by John Locke. I like it because it's defiant and optimistic all at the same time.

Locke's attitude is not one shared by our local Lowe's paint department. Readers of this blog know well the painting trials and tribulations Anita and I (mostly Anita) have endured since Katrina. They continue. Tonight I went to get a gallon of paint for the upstairs bathroom so we could get the second, and hopefully final, coat on the walls tonight. It was not meant to be.

I took my paint card to the paint department and asked for Sandy Shell in Valspar Ultra Premium base. This color is a Valspar Signature color but I did not think this would be a problem since we have had paint mixed this way in the past. I was informed by, let's call her Hilary, that the paint department employees were not allowed to mix Signature colors in anything but a Signature base. This is something that various and sundry paint department employees have told us during the 3 year period that we have been buying Signature colors in something other than a Signature base. I argued of course but I was told that not only were the paint department employees forbidden from mixing Signature colors in a non-Signature base, but if they were found out doing such a thing they would be written up. As well they should be! How dare they fulfill a paying customer's needs. At this point I gave up. Hilary did tell me that if I brought in the top of an old can with the information on it she could mix the paint for me. I suppose then she'd have to write herself up.

I wonder if this is something Valspar has imposed on Lowe's or if some of the employees don't know any better. I am hoping a kind, knowledgeable Valspar employee will run across this post and tell us the answer.

A paint can containing a Signature color mixed with a non-Signature base

All that was a long-winded way to say that I did not get the paint needed to complete the upstairs bathroom. I was successful in acquiring the baseboard for William's bedroom and a gallon of Valspar Ultra Premium Antique White for painting said baseboard. I now have to go unload the twelve 12 foot long pieces of baseboard and carry them upstairs, make the boys turn the Xbox down so they don't wake up the girls, and start painting the baseboard.

If snails could roof...

Wednesday's weather meant absolutely nothing done on the roof... But with Thursday came the completion of the smallish front right side. Today brought a sudden shower early in the morning while the guys were working on the front side of the garage roof... But they at least got that portion finished before they left for the weekend.

This leaves us with three more smallish portions... and then the very large back portion of the roof which I'm assuming will have to be completed in a marathon roofing session if we want to avoid having rain showers upstairs.

However, rain is in the forecast every day for the next 10 days again. Fine time for us to finally get our old summer weather pattern (i.e. sudden brief thunderstorm at least once per day) back.

There may be many more updates....

Before this thing is through.

Finally the camera batteries are revived and I was able to go out and take a picture or two (okay, I admit it.. I usually take DOZENS of pictures when I'm doing this...).

According to the Accuweather thingie at the bottom of my browser - the current weather is "Thunderstorm." So much for the 'accu' part of Accuweather... It's not quite thunderstorming.
To be fair a thunderstorm has been threatening all day so far.... but the heat seems to be breaking up the clouds each time they rebuild. I guess that's good for the roof -- and bad for the roofers.

As you can see they have almost completed the first (very small) section of the roof. It only makes sense to work in sections considering the size of the roof and the ever-present threat of sudden rain... But.. If we can judge by the size of this section and then split the roof into equal remaining sections that leaves one.. two... hmm... about seven sections. More math! Section one will have taken two work days to complete... Two times seven equals about nine more days than we were told it would take.

Enough complaining though... On the bright side nothing was crushed today (mostly because nothing was torn off and tossed to the ground today - but it's still a relief) and I'm really liking these shingles. Not only do I like the color a lot more than our previous Weathered Wood shade... But these have a larger... bolder design - the scale of which I think will help to make our roof a little less imposing visually.

Terrible weather for good pictures today... but you can see the difference between the new and old shingles pretty well in this one.

Eep

Work started at 5:00 am this morning on the roof. The first section of the roof has been torn off and thrown on the ground. We're not too thrilled with the level of care taken (or not) with protecting our landscaping at this point... but hopefully this will improve in the future.

Camera batteries are dead and charging -- more pictures to come later.

Something delivered

Truck

Not an aisle at the home improvement store. This is our driveway.

The shingles have arrived in a flurry of trucks, people, and machinery. Now they wait in our driveway until work gets underway next Monday.

A picture of the forklift in action just because I think forklifts are neat.