Beginning the Restoration

The home restoration is well under way. Drywall has been repaired and textured. All downstairs rooms were effected. Notice that all flooring was removed including the tile in the foyer and the kitchen. At this point the house still smelled a little musty. The concrete slab was still damp and will take some time to dry completely.











Painting has started. All the faux finishes that I did a few years ago have been whited coated. The painters have started to experiment with the color mix to restore the painting to as close to the original as possible.

Then disaster struck again. I turned the upstairs hallway bath toilet on again. I noticed that the bowl was empty and the tank was dry. It had been turned off by a neighbor the day that the water leak was discovered. Someone had probably used it and got one flush. I watched the tank fill up and then flushed it once. Everything seem to work fine. I put the lid on the tank and then closed the house up and went back to our temporary apartment.


The next morning, the restoration manager called to tell me that the toilet had leaked all night and that parts of the upstairs and downstairs had been water damaged. Within 30 minutes of arriving at the scene, the ceiling in the office caved in.

The drying crew was back on the property within the hour. Carpets in the upstairs hallway and adjacent bedrooms were removed. Baseboards were stripped from the walls. This time, the drywall did not need to be removed. The water was clean and the sub floor was wood. Water did not wick up the studs but soaked into the wood sub flooring and drained into the rooms below.

The verdict on the office was to remove most of the ceiling drywall and all the drywall on the north wall and the wall between the office the garage.

The water leaked in to the garage through the floor to ceiling cupboards and the ceiling.


The cupboards were removed and will be replaced. The better part of the ceiling in the garage will need to be repaired. This encouraged me to put in a water softener loop since a drain would need to be run through the ceiling over to the drain by the water heater.


So, the house is drying out at this time. the house is again filled with dryers and de-humidifiers. Work was suspended for 4 days to allow the drying process to proceed with doors shut and the furnaces cranking at 90 degrees.

It looks like all rooms upstairs will also be re-carpeted including the upstairs family room. We plan to order the same carpet we had in the downstairs and upstairs family rooms and use this for the all rooms where carpet needs to be replaced. My tile work in the hall bathroom does not need to be torn out but the walls will need to be re-painted. The only rooms in the house that have not been effected are the master bedroom and the master bathroom. Given that every room will get love, we decided to give some to the master bedroom too and have the carpets replaced and the walls painted.

Look for my next post where I will show you the new counter top from Finland.