Anyways, Ryan kissed me goodbye as he headed back to work and I sped to our new address, to get better acquainted with our lovely home. I bought some grapes and crackers to have a "picnic" there with the girls and brought some cleaning supplies so I could clean up whatever needed cleaning before we loaded our belongings in.
I remember stepping in and wanting to run into each and every empty bedroom, just to soak in the fact that all this house was really ours!
The excitement was short-lived, however. I went into the kitchen, set the grapes on the counter and immediately noticed something was wrong. The floor boards reflected the sun shining through the window like a rippling pool--the light glinting off in every direction.
The floor boards were cupped and warped, giving the floor a wavy look. I knelt down and ran my hand along the rough wood. It was dry but it was obvious they had been soaked at some point. I texted Ryan to tell him about it, wracking my brain, trying to remember if there had been any problems with the floor when we put an offer on it. Could we have missed something this bad? I remembered thinking it really needed to be refinished but I knew there weren't boards jutting up in every direction.
It had passed inspection with flying colors, there's no way a home inspector would have missed this.
So we called our real estate agent who called the sellers agent. The seller demanded that they hadn't done anything to it, they made it clear they weren't paying for it and that it was our problem.
Ohh boy.
We knew the entire kitchen and dining room floor would have to be ripped up and replaced and it was going to cost anywhere from $15,000-40,000...Depending on if the cabinets were damaged. And having just depleted a good portion of our savings on our home down payment we knew that wasn't possible for us to deal with.
So we fought it.
We had some disaster repair services come out and inspect it. They all concluded that when the previous owners moved out they were careless when removing the refrigerator. The hose that ran water to the ice maker had been pulled out and left to drip on the floor. They all agreed that the water probably dripped for a week or so,soaking the entire kitchen and dining room. The seller or the movers working for the seller must have come back to pack up some last minute items and saw what had happened. Because that certain somebody had cleaned it up, put the hose in the bucket (that's how we found it) and manually shut the water off to the house. And they never said a word to anyone about it.
So since we had substantial evidence in our favor that it did not happen while we owned the home, the previous home owners insurance ended up paying for the repairs.
The entire kitchen floor was ripped out, the cabinets were ripped out, the dry wall was ripped out.
We were pretty much getting an entire kitchen replacement.
It took just a little more than 2 months to complete.
Now that I think about it, the workers made pretty good time considering the huge job.
But it didn't seem like they were working very fast at the time.
We moved our fridge into the living room and lived in our home without a kitchen. The insurance offered us a paid-for room in a hotel while the work happened, however, all our stuff had just been moved in. We didn't want to move out and then move in again. We were so over moving.
So we stayed.
And it was horrible.
A couple months of living in a home with construction workers trudging in and out all day every day, lots of noise, gross smells, no kitchen and two kids who always want to eat was definitely not my idea of a house warming party.
But we made it work.
(That was our view of the kitchen from our living room. All blocked off like one of those creepy crime scenes..)
There was a lot that needed to be decided. What colors should the walls be (not burnt orange, thank you!) what floor materials to use, what color we wanted the cabinets, what material did we want the sink, what type and color of countertops we wanted... Our kitchen had become a blank canvas, ready for the artists paint brush. It was fun but kind of stressful. We had to choose all these items from different specialized stores at different locations, (which made for lots of driving around) and there was no way for me to compare and contrast each item to see if they complimented eachother well. I felt like I made a bunch of decisions in the dark and hoped they would look good together.
But it all worked out!
And now that it's all done I don't have to ever think about the horribleness of it all ever again. I just look at my pretty kitchen and feel grateful for the whole crazy experience. It's not often you get an entire kitchen makeover for free. How can I complain? It was one of those blessings in disguise, character building type experiences. The type of trial that your super grateful for but never ever want to have to deal with again.
Goodbye, orange!
Hello, beautiful.
