Water Update: Almost One Year Later

A little less than a year ago, as many of you might remember, Milwaukee fell victim to a pretty nasty storm which resulted in widespread flooding. Since then, bit by bit, we've been repairing the damage, and now, finally, our basement is done, from top to bottom. It's better than it was before, though; the old basement I merely tolerated, this one I like, and enjoy spending time in. See what you think!

On stairs, looking down, night of the flood.

On stairs, looking down, today.

Looking into main room, from foot of stairs (southwest corner), night of the flood.

Looking into the main room from foot of the stairs after stripping paneling, drywall, etc., a few weeks after the flood.

Looking into the main room from foot of the stairs today.

West wall, night of flood.

West wall today.

Northwest corner, night of flood.

Northwest corner, today.

Northeast corner, night of flood.

Northeast corner, today.

South wall, a few weeks after flood.

South wall (southeast corner), today.

View from bottom of stairs, a few weeks after flood.

View from bottom of stairs, today. 

View from northeast corner (between TV and computer), today. 

View from northwest corner, today.

Rearranged Living Room

Wednesday afternoon Madeleine and I decided, on a whim, to rearrange our living room.

Some people find an arrangement they like and they stick with it. I get bored, and like change and so I rearrange furniture from time to time.

Here is is, our newly arranged living room. I am rather happy with how it all feels and looks.

The Mother of All Invention

It's funny, but sometimes being forced to alter a routine introduces you to a better way of doing something.

Since the entire contents of our kitchen were strewn about our dining room yesterday, where we usually do most of our schoolwork, we were forced into the basement with all our schoolbooks. Wonder of wonders,we all preferred it. Madeleine had more table space at my big desk, and squirmy Hank was able to wiggle and shake to his heart's content by sitting on the floor and using the coffee table as a desk. I appreciated the school mess being contained to the basement instead in one of our main living spaces.

The kitchen is painted now and all the pots and pans have found their way back into the kitchen, but our schoolbooks are staying in the basement for now.

Broken

Tuesday night Madeleine stood on the upstairs toilet to try and reach something in the medicine cabinet. Joe and I have told her eight hundred million, kazillion times to please not stand on the toilet b/c it puts too much stress on the hinges of the toilet seat cover and, besides, there's nothing in the medicine cabinet she needs or should have anyway. So, despite our warnings to not stand on the toilet seat she decided to ignore us and, yep, tore the toilet seat cover plum off. We now have a toilet seat coverless toilet until I can get to the hardware store (chances of that happening today? Magic 8 Ball says: "My sources say no"). On a scale of one to ten, this hits my irritation level at about a five or six.

Yesterday I made the kids popovers for breakfast. About thirty minutes after I had pulled the popovers out of the oven and closed the oven door the oven door literally just FELL OFF. No one was touching it, no one was near it (thankfully!), nothing. The kids and I just sat and stared at it for about a solid minute with our mouths hanging open. I was able to jam the door back on somehow, but there's no doubt that oven is on its last legs. Irritation level? Oh, about an eight.

Yet today is a new day. The sun is shining, the house is relatively clean and the kids are only doing a moderate amount of whining. As long as the refrigerator door doesn't spontaneously fall off, I think we'll be fine.

Random Stuff

Our phone works again. Whew. I never realized how many people only had our home phone number and not our cell phone numbers. On the bright side, though, voicemail was able to screen out the 8 gazillion calls we received Monday and Tuesday telling us who to vote for and I never had to listen to the robo calls.

Holy week was wonderful. Each year I am more and more thankful for such a wonderful church, church family and the family and friends we have and who share in our Easter Sunday festivities with us. My house hasn't recovered yet and physically I'm exhausted, but I am so thankful for all our Holy Week services, for a joyful Easter service and breakfast after and for everyone who celebrated at our home with us later that day.

The forecast predicts that we might hit the sixties by the end of the week. Horrah!

Still waiting on a renovation versus moving verdict. I wish our builder would hurry and call back. If we're going the addition route I want to hurry up and start!

Really having trouble deciding on a name for our new daughter. Joe and I just aren't reaching a consensus and while we still have lots of time I wish we had a shorter short list. I feel as if I scour our family trees in vain one more time that I just might scream.

Temporary Basement Fix

This last rainfall solidified, at least in my mind, big-time basement renovations were going to have to wait.  Maybe forever.  Who puts up drywall and lays carpet in an area that leaks when it rains?

But I had to do something.  The ugly, dreary paneling was getting to me.

So, after the rainfall and before the clean-up, I painted.  A bright, cheery yellow.  And the kids helped me paint, which was fun.

Yes, yes, I need an after picture.  Yet here I sit on my sofa with a cup of coffee that is both the perfect temperature and the right combination of coffee and cream.  Oh, and all three kids are still asleep.  So no, I will not go snap a picture just now.  Blame laziness, blame selfishness, say what you like, but I am not moving from this spot just yet.  Later. I'll take an after picture later.

I won't say that I love it down there now, but I like it much, much more than I did before.  It certainly is bright and cheerful now and, besides dry, what else can a homeowner ask for?

Trip to Sears

Our dryer is broken. For those of you with kids, you understand what a calamity this is.

The situation had to be remedied immediately. So, upon our return from Oshkosh, we climbed into the van and headed over to Sears. Our mission should have been easy and quick. Our washing machine is so fantastic that we just wanted the cheapest functioning electric dryer we could find. That took two minutes.

Next we decided that as long as we were there we should finish off the kitchen and get a new dishwasher. With a recent issue of Consumer Reports in hand, we headed over to the dishwasher aisle. That took a bit longer, but not much; I pretty much knew what I wanted.

But the paying, argh! Printing off different receipts for this, arranging delivery for that; it was dull, dull, dull. Superdad won the prize of dealing with two different salesmen, a manager and a cash register and I headed off to the furniture department with the two big kids.

I'm fairly certain seeing Madeleine and Hank in action prompted the furniture department manager to call the appliance department and ask them to hurry up already.

They didn't.

Madeleine and Hank migrated to greener-- or shall I say softer -- pastures.


The kids, well they had a great time. The staff at Sears? Not so much, I think. But I count the trip as a success: we got our new appliances, the kids were occupied and nothing was broken or ruined. In my book, it doesn't get any better than that.

My New Living Room

You all already know how much I love the mail. It's beyond pathetic, really, how much I love the mail.

But there's something I love even more than the mail: a UPS or Fed Ex delivery. I admit it, if I hear a large truck coming down our street I drop everything, run to the window and cross all my fingers and toes that it will stop in front of my house, even if I'm not expecting anything.

Imagine my elation this past week when the Fed Ex Ground truck slowed and eventually stopped in front of my house! YIPPEE!! My speedy little Fed Ex delivery guy sprinted up to my door carrying a rather large package and my level of giddiness was beyond measure. I ripped right into the package and found my IKEA slipcovers (you know, the ones I had to order on eBay because IKEA sucks).


We bought our Jennylund IKEA chairs about three years ago. We chose the white slipcovers because we liked the way they looked and figured they'd be easy to wash. What I never factored in was 1) well, they're white and get filthy easily and quickly and 2) they take a minimum two days to wash and dry (more if you're like me and forget to take them out of the washing machine) so that's two days where I would bar the door so people couldn't peek in and see my un-slipcovered chairs.

They look fine, even when with a little bit of a "lived-in" look (read: dirty) but those greedy bastards at IKEA keep designing cuter and more tempting slipcovers every year. I finally told myself I could just order a spare set; you know, so when one was being washed I wouldn't have to deal with the un-slipcovered chairs. A very, very important consideration, really.

Here are the Jennylund chairs prior to being rescued by the Fed Ex delivery man:

And here they are after:

Much nicer, right? Who here honestly believes those white slipcovers will actually find their way back the chairs (and why should they; IKEA now makes an even better style of white Jennylund slipcovers)?

Kitchen Adjustment, V

The new kitchen floor project (which also included a small hallway and half bath) is finished and Superdad and I love it. Love, love, love it.


On Friday, when it was finished, and we were given permission to walk on the glorious new floor, even the kids were thrilled. Beyond thrilled. In fact, I don't quite know what came over us; maybe it was the fumes from the newly sealed floor, but before I knew what was happening the strains of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake overtook us. Before we were aware of our surroundings Madeleine had become Odette, whirling around the kitchen, madly trying to show Hank, consumed by the persona of Price Siegfried, that I was the evil Odile, and not his true love. Unfortunately for us, Superdad, unmoved by one of Tchaikovsky's greatest works, was quick with the camera.

How embarrassing.

Kitchen Adjustment, IV

Are you sick of seeing our kitchen yet?

It's all I can think of. This one measly project has managed to affect almost every room in the house. I have nothing else to give.

So, here it is. The new oak floor has been laid and sanded once. They'll be back today to finish.

Kitchen Adjustment, III

Notice anything different between the pictures in this post and the picture below, taken today?


Let me tell ya, I'm not loving having my kitchen be off limits. No siree, I'm sure not.

And not only is my kitchen off limits, but my living room has been swallowed by flooring supplies and power tools (and apparently my childrens' cast off coats too, but you weren't looking at those, right?).


I'll give you more specifics as work progresses, but more observant readers will probably be able to conjecture what's being put in the old floor's place by using picture clues...

Kitchen Adjustment, II

Do I or do I not have a digital camera? When I said I didn't have any pictures of the kitchen it never even occurred to me to take a couple.

Here it is. Just ignore Hank in the last picture; he's getting his daily Tom and Jerry fix. Oh, and ignore the dirty dishes. And the mittens drying out in front of the heating register. And any other messes you might see...

Kitchen Adjustment

Superdad and I are seriously thinking of remodeling our kitchen. For those of you who have seen it I'm sure you understand why. It's all fairly new but it's just not how I would like it, the highlight in ugly-ness being the bright green formica countertops.

Given the amount of time I spend in my kitchen it's disappointing there aren't more pictures of it and, as a result, I'm forced to once again share this awful picture of me, but if you enlarge it you can see the kitchen. Sort of.


What we want to do:

1) Re-do the floors. Pull up the linoleum and put in hard wood. We can try to match the oak currently throughout the first floor (which is the less expensive option) or we can go with a lighter maple, which could help make the kitchen feel larger and brighter. I'm sort of leaning to a larger plank (think 4-5 inches) maple, but I am open and encourage any suggestions (especially from a particular aunt who I know possesses an acumen for envisioning what would look good!).

2) Re-do the absurdly ugly counters. We're open to almost anything for the new counter top, although my preferences certainly seem to trend towards some type of stone. It's such a small amount of counter top that granite or silestone are the front runners right now. So, tell me what you know about the positives and negatives of each. Color suggestions are welcome, too.

3) Put in a new sink. We have an old, crusty stainless steel sink and I want an under mounted sink of some sort. This though, I feel fairly capable of choosing on my own since the selection is a bit more limited. I'd love to hear input from those who have one though and if there is any downside.

UPDATE: I took and posted current pictures here.