Happy Ever After

The basement once it was fixed up...

Don't Cry... it will only add to the water in the basement

Well,

It appears as though we live in a place that gets more rain than B.C! We estimate that we had over three inches of rain in just over one hour! I lay in bed Tuesday night watching the continuous crash of lightening outside the window; lightening slowly gave way to rain and hail that created a drone too loud to ignore. At 1:30 in the morning a soft knock on our bedroom door started the dogs barking. "What" Dan groans, "The basement flooded" the tiny whisper slips through our door - The enormity of news did not match the tone of voice! Going downstairs we were greeted with about half an inch of water - sploosh! What happened was the window well filled with water, the ground was hard and dry so it did not absorb any water. The roads were flooded level with the sidewalks and all low areas were filled to overflowing. The window wells, being low spots, filled like a bathtub, the drain plugged with all the debris; when the water reached the bottom of the window if slipped right on in and down the inside of the wall. Not only did the water see fit to soak the floor with over an inch of water in some spots, it also crept along inside the wall cavity into the other room. Eventually it trailed all the way across the basement and into the sump wreaking havoc as it went. Our roommates (Timothy and Laura) helped us most of the night clean up the mess. Amie, our other roommate, who's window it was leaked is away on vacation and still doesn't know! The only personal belongings that got wet were a computer monitor and about 20 loads of laundry. Timothy has since moved upstairs to the spare room and Amie's stuff is in the living room waiting for her to come home.

And I'm sure everyone will be as happy to hear as I was that we are NOT covered by insurance. They say we don't have sewer-back up on our coverage (which is news to me) so I've been on the phone with some nasty words trying to get the our broker to admit they neglected to tell us this tiny detail! We'll see what comes of that. As for now, we've got to go open up the walls and pull up some carpet.

Oh, and the pictures are from the rain storm we had this afternoon! (very similar to the one that flooded us!) Oh, yeah we finally got sod too!

The Open House

Wow!

That was a lot of work! We didn't get nearly as much as we wanted to get done on the house in the time my parents were here: Reason - They brought their crummy B.C. weather with them. That's right, as soon as they jumped into their truck and pulled away from their driveway the clouds started to form over their little truck. As they progressed through the mountains they were greeted with snow; the prairies brought rain and wind. Finally they arrive at 11pm and the rain settle in above my house. Funny thing is, they day they left they took it with them! I'm sitting here now writing this from my lovely little spot in the sunshine on my back deck! HA!

We did get some paving stones down outside. Got most of the black trim painted. Dad fixed our gate that couldn't be opened (yes, it was essentially just a fence until he fixed his design flaw). We drank a lot, ate a bit too much, and definitely had a good time. We got gravel down the side of my house where the backfill had created cavernous washouts! We got concrete down the side of the house (the plas

tic bags around my dad's feet were an attempt to protect them from the concrete since he was standing in it). It was fun to watch dad try to finish the concrete. The stretch was so long and narrow with fence/house on either side he had no choice but to build planks and crawl across on hand and knee. At one point he swore loudly, we looked, sure enough his face was inches from the wet cement and his hand print was clearly visible smushed into it. He managed to smooth that one out and we were able to keep the cat off it as well (unlike when we did the garage). Gramma and Grampa came up from the cost for the Open House as well. They helped a lot with the cleaning. Gramma and I planted our garden out front! Yay for a rock garden - people out here spend all their time and

effort to pick rocks out of their fields and to get rid of them... I paid to have a tuck load brought into my yard!

The Open House itself was a blast! Loads of people came (although, nobody was brave enough to be the first one here; everyone came about two hours

in). We met all of our neighbours and they all got great ideas for their own houses. I even heard some people talking about bull dozing their old houses and building new- guess it's contagious.

Finishing Touches

Well, now we have started into the phase of the house that never seems to end! We're just working on the finishing touches! The open house gives us a good deadline to have most of the major work done by; however, I fear that the small touch up jobs are going to drag on forever!

Open House

Well, my parents have set the date for when they will be out here in May. That means we are going to have a week long blitz to finish the house. We need some sod in the front yard, we need cement walkway poured beside the house, and we need a few things done on the inside still. Once that is all done we want to show off all our hard work! So, we are proud to announce our first ever OPEN HOUSE! On May 30th from 1:00 - 5:00 pm we will open our house for everyone to come and see. It will be a come and go event with loads of food and wine as you wonder around.

We would also be thrilled to host anyone from B.C who is willing to make the trip out here :) but for those of you who can't we'll be posting a wack load of pictures from the Open House.

Hope to see you all there

Comments!

I would also like to take this time to thank everyone (mostly Jenn) for your(her) comments. Apparanetly you can comment on a blog which is something I just figured out now! So I just went back and read everyones comments. :) I'm a little slow