Update
If you haven't checked in a few days, I've posted a TON of pics. Go back to October 3, and check out between now and today.
Ok, so I thought that I would keep up with this blog day-to-day through the rebuild, but I've just not had the time nor the wherewithal to do so. Anyway... what I've done is posted a picture or two from each of the days that I took pictures. I may switch this up to just posting pics, and then the occasional update. I dunno yet. Incidentally, hop on over to Andrea's page to see more pics. http://www.jedi.net/~reign
So the BIG update I've been meaning to put on here is that the cause of the fire was found NOT to be chemicals... it was ELECTRICAL. We actually found that out the day after the fire when a fire investigator came out. It was really cool getting to watch him work. It was all like a scene out of CSI. He found this pile of wood that had been knocked around the garage and he rebuilt the pile. It had been stacked against the wall in the garage. That wall had an electrical outlet on it and THAT was what caused the fire. We had aluminum wiring in the house. If you have aluminum wiring, I would HIGHLY recommend you convert it to copper. At the very least, hire an electrician to pigtail copper onto the ends of each run. It may just save your home!
Our insurance company has given us exemplary service. Really really top notch.
We're now in an apartment, after having stayed with Andrea's brother, Rob for a couple weeks. It was super nice to have family in town, not just for the fact that we had somewhere to stay, but it was nice to stay with family while all of this was going on. BIG thanks to Rob and Alev for letting us stay with them!
We got some of our stuff delivered to the apartment. The first load included EVERY SINGLE THING from our kitchen. I mean EVERYTHING. Probably 30 boxes worth of kitchen stuff. Needless to say, we had to pare it down and get just what we'd need, and what would fit in the apartment kitchen. They also delivered our mattress, but no box spring. Then they delivered the box spring, but it had not been cleaned at all. Smelled like a fireplace! The mattress also was dingy looking, so they took both back. The box spring was better off for the cleaning, but the mattress somehow became even worse and the cleaners are talking to the insurance company about totaling it out. It's usable, but we JUST bought it when we moved into the house... and now it looks like a 12 year old mattress.
Work has been very busy for me. We hired two folks though. One of them Chris, from my old job. That is really turning things around and the workload is going to become much more bearable in the next few months.
A few weeks ago we went down to help Mom and Dad lay Pergo in their new house. That went pretty smooth. I am a professional, after all.
Hrmmm what else? dunno. I just applied for a credit card that gives cash back since we will be buying so much stuff to replace what we lost. Might as well get a free vacation or something out of it.
Our general contractor has been really good. They have pretty much finished the demolition of the house. The house is essentially down to framing and foundation. The building materials got her on Thursday and Friday and they will start re-framing the burned part on Monday. The final cost (so far) for JUST the rebuild of the house is $150K+! Pretty insane. Especially considering that we paid only $185K for the house AND land. When all is said and done, the house will probably be worth around $270K after the rebuild. There is a bright side in everything. Don't get me wrong, it's not all roses and I'm CERTAINLY not saying I would have wished for this for us or for ANYONE. We lost a lot of stuff we can't replace, and the hassle of having to find everything and rebuy can be pretty grating at times. Not to mention the stress and shock of waking up to a freakin FIRE in our home.
We are actually finishing up the inventory list still. LOTS of stuff got trashed.
We met with the GC (general contractor) and talked about stuff we will want to change and some stuff we had planned on upgrading anyway. We're probably going to go back with limestone instead of brick, replacing some (if not all) windows - (side note: our electric bill has been nearly $400 for the past 3 months! can someone say inefficient!?), going back with paneled doors instead of flat doors... probably a jet bath tub, new vanity for the hall bath (which we almost bought just a a few weeks before all this happened!), and a few other things.
Oh, and I'm also wiring the entire house for sound while it's down to the frame. Pretty cool.
Evan says I write novels for my posts. Hopefully y'all still enjoy reading em :-P
OK. some pictures...
(funny note: I just ran spell check on this and the spell checker brought up "foreskin" as a suggested replacement/misspelling of "freakin" HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!)
Read the rest of this post - CLICK here!
Ok, so I thought that I would keep up with this blog day-to-day through the rebuild, but I've just not had the time nor the wherewithal to do so. Anyway... what I've done is posted a picture or two from each of the days that I took pictures. I may switch this up to just posting pics, and then the occasional update. I dunno yet. Incidentally, hop on over to Andrea's page to see more pics. http://www.jedi.net/~reign
So the BIG update I've been meaning to put on here is that the cause of the fire was found NOT to be chemicals... it was ELECTRICAL. We actually found that out the day after the fire when a fire investigator came out. It was really cool getting to watch him work. It was all like a scene out of CSI. He found this pile of wood that had been knocked around the garage and he rebuilt the pile. It had been stacked against the wall in the garage. That wall had an electrical outlet on it and THAT was what caused the fire. We had aluminum wiring in the house. If you have aluminum wiring, I would HIGHLY recommend you convert it to copper. At the very least, hire an electrician to pigtail copper onto the ends of each run. It may just save your home!
Our insurance company has given us exemplary service. Really really top notch.
We're now in an apartment, after having stayed with Andrea's brother, Rob for a couple weeks. It was super nice to have family in town, not just for the fact that we had somewhere to stay, but it was nice to stay with family while all of this was going on. BIG thanks to Rob and Alev for letting us stay with them!
We got some of our stuff delivered to the apartment. The first load included EVERY SINGLE THING from our kitchen. I mean EVERYTHING. Probably 30 boxes worth of kitchen stuff. Needless to say, we had to pare it down and get just what we'd need, and what would fit in the apartment kitchen. They also delivered our mattress, but no box spring. Then they delivered the box spring, but it had not been cleaned at all. Smelled like a fireplace! The mattress also was dingy looking, so they took both back. The box spring was better off for the cleaning, but the mattress somehow became even worse and the cleaners are talking to the insurance company about totaling it out. It's usable, but we JUST bought it when we moved into the house... and now it looks like a 12 year old mattress.
Work has been very busy for me. We hired two folks though. One of them Chris, from my old job. That is really turning things around and the workload is going to become much more bearable in the next few months.
A few weeks ago we went down to help Mom and Dad lay Pergo in their new house. That went pretty smooth. I am a professional, after all.
Hrmmm what else? dunno. I just applied for a credit card that gives cash back since we will be buying so much stuff to replace what we lost. Might as well get a free vacation or something out of it.
Our general contractor has been really good. They have pretty much finished the demolition of the house. The house is essentially down to framing and foundation. The building materials got her on Thursday and Friday and they will start re-framing the burned part on Monday. The final cost (so far) for JUST the rebuild of the house is $150K+! Pretty insane. Especially considering that we paid only $185K for the house AND land. When all is said and done, the house will probably be worth around $270K after the rebuild. There is a bright side in everything. Don't get me wrong, it's not all roses and I'm CERTAINLY not saying I would have wished for this for us or for ANYONE. We lost a lot of stuff we can't replace, and the hassle of having to find everything and rebuy can be pretty grating at times. Not to mention the stress and shock of waking up to a freakin FIRE in our home.
We are actually finishing up the inventory list still. LOTS of stuff got trashed.
We met with the GC (general contractor) and talked about stuff we will want to change and some stuff we had planned on upgrading anyway. We're probably going to go back with limestone instead of brick, replacing some (if not all) windows - (side note: our electric bill has been nearly $400 for the past 3 months! can someone say inefficient!?), going back with paneled doors instead of flat doors... probably a jet bath tub, new vanity for the hall bath (which we almost bought just a a few weeks before all this happened!), and a few other things.
Oh, and I'm also wiring the entire house for sound while it's down to the frame. Pretty cool.
Evan says I write novels for my posts. Hopefully y'all still enjoy reading em :-P
OK. some pictures...
(funny note: I just ran spell check on this and the spell checker brought up "foreskin" as a suggested replacement/misspelling of "freakin" HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!)
Read the rest of this post - CLICK here!
posted by Mike at 11:24 PM
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