The Washing Machine Incident Phase II

So, you may have forgot, but back in February, we had The Washing Machine Incident. The upstairs washing machine leaked while we were in the shower. It leaked through the ceiling, walls, and light fixtures below. That weekend, we had to have mold remediation cut holes in the drywall and run insanely loud industrial fans for 4 days to dry it all out. It traumatized the cat.

It also ruined the floor right below it. We can’t patch that floor because they no longer make our floor — because of course they don’t. So all the floor that touches that area has to be replaced. Hello open floor plan! That’s our entire downstairs. Entrance, living room, dining room, kitchen and hall all need to be replaced.

Sounds cool. Free floor. But it’s not.

One, dark floors aren’t in style anymore. And we can’t pick just any floor. We still have a staircase and the flooring upstairs that it has to match. So with dark flooring out of style, we were severely low on choices. I PRAY this floor looks okay. We are going from engineered hardwoods to vinyl plank which should be awesome. Vinyl has come a long way in the eight years since we built. It should be better by not showing foot prints (I hate that about our current floor) and not scuff/scratch/dent so easily. The engineered hardwood also hasn’t held up great in high traffic areas. It’s easy to chip off those corners in some areas. So it’s an upgrade even though it’s cheaper. Weird. I hope it doesn’t look too shiny.

We had, like, two options. No really. Two options. We originally had three when we came home from the store. They didn’t follow Builder’s instructions though and showed us floor that couldn’t be glued down. So the flooring lady had to find whatever she should that she thought might match and bring it buy. Two. Just-a-two. One we liked the color better and one we liked the finish better. We went with the color. I HOPE IT’S NOT SHINY. Also, when I say we liked the color, I mean to match our cabinets. It’s weird. The cabinets and floor both pulled very dark red when installed. Now they pull orange where the sun has faded them. It’s better than yellow, but we had to account for that. Sorry, beautiful mahogany swatch.

We wanted our builder who did the house to do everything, so we had to wait until he had time. He’s in high demand and doesn’t have time for shit. We were willing to wait though. So now here we are. A few month’s later, we’re ready to go.

The Moving

The moving happened Wednesday. Being that the whole downstairs floor is being replaced, we had to move out the entire downstairs. Including kitchen appliances. Yep. Even the fucking pantry.

We’ve living upstairs. With a refrigerator and a toaster oven in the garage. Also, I bought a bunch of storage totes for the pantry stuff because we’ve had mice in there before.

That’s fun. They broke my refrigerator too. They didn’t put it back together properly and shoved the drawers in. Broke a piece of plastic that the drawer slides on. It’s not terrible and invisible once everything is in place. However, I have very little hope when it comes to them moving it back in. I’m worried. I’m going to ask builder to make sure he or I are here to watch them move it.

It’s really weird. The downstairs echoes so much that even locking the door is heard throughout the house. And if we want a drink or snack or anything, we have to go to the garage to get it and bring it back upstairs.

Thankfully, we both work upstairs. Husband uses his office for work and play. I have no desire to do that. I need to have separate work and relaxation locations. My relax location is the livingroom. That’s where I live. And they took that away. So…

My Nook

Remember when I moved my old apartment couch into the bedroom to make a “nook” to escape when my in laws were visiting? Well, this is where I hung out during the weekend of the remediation. And it’s where I’m hanging out now. Only this time, it will be for a month. And there’s no kitchen. Anyway.

We moved all the downstairs plants up here so they can still get care. I’m a very “out of sight, out of mind person.” That’s how I killed the gorgeous gigantic peace lily. I put in the guest bedroom, and forgot to water it regularly. (NOTE: When gifting plants to people with pets, look up toxicity, for the love of god). My office has plants but it doesn’t get as much light as our bedroom, so we brought up the card table and put everything in here.

Of course, I brought up my laptop and table. That is what I do. But what about the TV? I usually have my firestick playing videos while I play on my laptop. For a weekend it was fine, but a month? So I also brought in the small guest bedroom TV. Why don’t I just use the guest bedroom? Well, there’s just a bed in there. Not a couch.

I have a pretty damn sweet nook going on. I love all the plants being around me. I have a great view during the day time. If I had a minifridge for drinks and snack I’d be rocking and rolling! The only shelf stable snacks are trash. It’d be nice to have a minifridge for drinks and yogurt and salami and cheese snacks. But not worth the expense for just one month. No use for it after this.

I have a fan too! The bedroom’s ceiling fan is broken. We’ve bought a new one to replace it, but we have not yet done that. So zoom in here to my using a full sized ceiling fan in the box as a table for my small table fan pointed right at my face. I solve problems. Extremely comfy couch too.

It’s gonna be a downgrade for the nook when everything goes back to normal. I don’t do bedrooms with TVs. But I am going to keep some plants in here. I like the plants.

What About Louie?

I already told you that the weekend of fans traumatized the cat. We didn’t think it would be bad because we were both here. We were just upstairs. He mostly hang out on this couch with me. But now he’s so jumpy all the time. He jumps when the AC kicks on now! So this whole thing was not going to be good for Louie. Also, he tries to escape out of any door the second he thinks you might be about to open it. He’s watching. Fucking all the builders and people who have come over have let him out. So he had to go.

What? No, I didn’t get RID of my cat. He’s staying at K’s house. He stayed there over Christmas and did great. So she has graciously agreed to let him stay there during this hot mess. I dropped him off Tuesday before the movers came on Wednesday. Friday, I even went over for a sleepover! Cause my house is weird as fuck now and I miss my cat. Did he snuggle me all night because he missed me? No. He’s Louie, not Jack. But look, he did go to sleep touching both of my feet. That’s significant Louie love right there.

I can’t remember the last time I did a sleepover that wasn’t family. Like, did I even do sleepovers in high school? But K’s guest room has been converted to Louie’s room because she has three dogs. So two baby gates in the doorway allow Louie to jump through but not any dogs. And it has her old purple mattress and I’ve never slept on a purple mattress before. She even has a nightlight and fan cause she knows me. AWESOME.

Though, to be honest, the sleepover made me feel worse. Louie let me have lots of his little five-minute snuggles. Where he wants all the snuggles and fake purrs real loud to ham it up. He can be so so so sweet in short bursts. Yet he was still very alert. I was afraid he couldn’t relax and was too high strung. Even though he doesn’t like the big dogs, he’s still all up and about walking around the house and laying on the floor. Weird cat. Strangely, he fears the big gentle dogs but not the small very active dog. Louie, you need to reprioritize.

In the morning, I grabbed some yogurt to eat in the living room. Louie just wanted to stay in his room and wail at me to return. This made me feel terrible. And having to leaving him again was heart wrenching. I wish I could explain to him that I love him and it’s just temporary and he’s gonna come back home!

I miss him too. I MISS MY FUZZY! I know. As husband and K both say, he’s fine. He’s happy with all the entertainment. I just miss him. I worry. K sent me pictures of him purring in her face today though and that made me feel LOADS better. So he is getting some of those good short pet sessions in. I’ll probably, actually feel really bad when I bring him back to our extremely boring home. I did after Christmas.

Two of her dogs just switched weeks to stay with her mom (joint pet custody). So it will be more calm. I hope he makes friends with their big gentle dog. They could be buddies! They made excellent progress over Christmas. I have hopes.

And Now

And now we wait. Drywall guy should be back tomorrow. I think floor work will begin Wednesday. I worry drywall will hold them up though because one of the seams was done poorly and will need redoing.

Also, the construction dust is EVERYWHERE. We have all of the rooms upstairs shut but the hall and railings are covered in dust. We also have to do that while they’re working because they leave the doors open so we turn the AC downstairs off and raise it really high upstairs and just try to keep it in our offices.

Three more weeks? Maybe? Hopefully not more? RIGHT?

I know that, in a year, I’m going to be happy we got new floors. They will hopefully wear and look better. They should have longer life than our older floor. They shouldn’t show my every foot print. They should be more durable. We won’t have the chips and scratches we have now. It should be good. Just gotta get through this mess.