Insurance

Here's some quick pictures of the evolution of the dining room- now severely damaged by fire.
One year ago before we renovated:

During renovations:

Renovation complete:

Now, after the fire- all the damage is from water, the actual fire was upstairs in the neighbor's house.

Please make sure your home owner's or renter's insurance is up-to-date.  I was looking over our home owner's policy, bundled with our car insurance we get a discount and its only about $55 a month (less than most cell phone plans), renter's is much less because they are only insuring your belongings, not the structure.  I don't even want to speculate the cost of damage.  Our insurance is covering the water abatement, renovations, cleaning, repairing or replacing our belongings and relocating use for the time being.  We feel blessed to be safe and to know that everything is going to be ok. :-)

New Windows, Almost

Saturday was supposed to be "new window day".  The windows guys were coming at 8 am and we had to be up and ready for them- all furniture moved 3 feet from the windows, all window coverings off and all window ac units out. 

Taking down the blinds

Here's the living rooom, a wreck right now, with the new ceiling fan ready to be installed.

The guys took apart the back upstairs windows first and discovered the the aluminium siding was never put on properly, rain water was able to get in between the siding and the wall.  They wouldn't do any more windows, but they tacked the 4 back windows in place until we can get a contractor out here.  The part with the rot is an addition to the house, the rest of the house is brick and no water was able to get in around those windows, but they wouldn't touch anything else without the contractor. 

Behind the wood paneling

Rotten windowsill

We were planning on taking down the wood paneling this fall, when the weather is cooler, and having this room sheet rocked.  It is either going to be a second child's bedroom or the playroom.

The window guys stuck the rest of the windows in the basement and took off so fast, it can only lead me to believe that they had another job scheduled for the same day. 

Micah and the windows in the basement

This project is going to cost a lot more than we planned, looks like the whole back wall of the 2 story addition is going to need to be replaced.  The contractor came out today, but he can't schedule us for a few weeks.

We knew this house needed work when we bought it 13 months ago, but the house inspector didn't tell us some really expensive things that needed to be fixed: the stove, the boiler, rotten wall of the addition, and bathroom water pipes were completely blocked- we had to completely tear apart the main bathroom because the pipes were imbedded in concrete in the floor.  The inspector told us we had alumunium wiring, which really made me nervous- I had an electrician out here right after we moved in and he confirmed that was not the case. 

Aren't housing inspectors licensced by the state?  At what point do you take legal action at his incompetence?