Renovations

FINALLY! We've moved out of our house in order for the flood repair work to be done. Since the demo back in June, we've been living at home on bare subfloor, no ceiling and walls downstairs, no bedroom for Little Man, and no hall bathroom for the kids. And I've been working non-stop to get USAA to approve all the work.

They finally came back with the approval and payments, and the contractors came to move us out. The entire downstairs had to be packed up for the duration, because our downstairs has continuous hardwoods and even the non-damaged parts had to be sanded down and re-stained so everything would match. We are also taking the opportunity to have hardwoods put in Little Man's room and our master bedroom, so those rooms had to be packed up as well.

So we are currently living in a furnished 4-bedroom house about 10 minutes away. It's a very nice house (Sweet Pea wants to live there permanently!) but the rest of us are eager to get back to our house once the work is done. Ten minutes may not sound like much, but it adds 20 minutes to every round trip, and that makes a huge difference at 6:30am, for example, when we drive CC to school! And Little Man and Sweet Pea don't get a bus at this house, so I have to drive them and pick them up from school every day.

Meanwhile, I visit our house every few days to check on how the work is going. The drywall went up immediately, in just the first few days. It made the biggest difference downstairs (walls! ceiling!), but it needed to be fill in the "flood cut" upstairs as well: the bottom portions of the bathroom and Little Man's room.