COME WHAT MAY...AND LOVE IT! (part 2)

See this picture?

It's my upstairs bathroom.

It's been like this for almost 3 years now.

Slowly being pieced together.

Did I mention it was SLOW?

Good, cuz I wasn't sure.

Let me paint you a picture of the problem.

You see...almost 3 years ago,

Kaleb put his elbow through the bottom of the tub.

It was the result of me asking him to go brush his teeth.

He's talented that way.

Brushing teeth=hole in tub.

Makes sense, right?
Well, as he was brushing his teeth...

He decided he would twirl in the shower curtain at the same time.

While doing so he lost his balance,

and the edge of the tub caught him behind his knees

causing him to tumble backwards.

He braced his fall with his elbows,

one of them putting a softball size hole in the tub.

We should have just replaced it with a shower insert,

then I wouldn't be telling you this story.

But hey...we like difficult, right?

I decided it would look nice if we tiled the walls instead.

We got a higher walled tub for Ben too.

Why not take the linoleum out why we're at it?
We did.

Thus you see the nicely tiled floor that my husband put in.

Problem?

He's afraid of tiling the walls.

It's like a mental block.
It's taken him almost 3 years of me cheering him on.

(okay, some of it nagging)

This week was the week.

He was going to tackle his fear.

Course it's taken all week to mentally prepare

and yesterday to buy the remaining supplies.

Today was the day.

Until last night came.

That's when the floodgates opened.

(literally)

Steve was gone.

I was upstairs putting Ben to bed.

Stevie needed something from the basement.

She was afraid to go down by herself.

I assured her it was okay.

There was nothing to be afraid of.

Then she heard some noises.

That discouraged her even more.

I got a little impatient and told her to GO!

She headed down the basement stairs...

I hear her yell something about someone taking a shower???
All kids are in bed, Steve is gone...hmmm....

She tiptoes further down and starts screaming,

"There's water mom, COME QUICK!"

I dropped what I was doing and ran.

As I went running down the stairs all I could see was STEAM.

Then I heard the water.

Through the fog I saw the problem.

One of the pipes had broken.

Scalding hot water had been pouring out,

through our insulation,

through the ceiling tiles,

through the sheet rock and paint,

down the window and sill

and all over the couch and rug.

Stevie's still SCREAMING,

I'm running for the phone to call Steve,

trying to calm Stevie,

calling the other kids to come help

and running to the furnace to shut off the water switch.

(all at the same time, I'm a multi-tasker)

Too late, lots of damage was done.

The water was SO hot that it bubbled the paint right off.

Our couch cushions were soaked along with the rug.

4 of our nice ceiling tiles were ruined.

The insulation had to be pulled out and the paint peeled.

GOOD GRIEF!

So much for my bathroom getting tiled.

THIS is what Steve did today.

You can't see both sides of the window walls,

but they both looked like the one to the right.

We probably went through 10 towels trying to soak up all the water. I took this picture after most of the cleanup was done. This picture does not do it justice. The couch is completely dismantled to allow the cushions to dry and all the tile debri is cleaned up.

The good news? I still have a home to shelter my family. Sure we'll have to continue brushing our teeth around all the construction chaos upstairs and maybe we'll have to sit on the floor while watching movies in the basement until the couch dries but HEY! My home is still standing. :)