First of all, let me say it was not our house…..it was INDIANA. Ark jokes were flying as more rain fell here in just one night than had fallen since I had been a boy cumulatively! I woke up at 2:30 to see a LAKE in my front yard, and no I do not mean a stream, but a LAKE. Our driveway has a bridge over a drainage and the bridge was almost underwater, and the park next door was completely submerged.
Of course all this led me to look in the basement, since the house was built in 1936 and has no sump pump. The prior owners said it had flooded once before in their 15 years here, but I figured that was almost impossible as the house is up a hill and the yard slopes pretty good…down to our new lake!
But my fears were realized when sure enough the carpet in the family room was wet…..very wet. And I had already checked the weather. Starting to vacuum that up would have been like bailing the Titanic, so I went back to bed.
So after getting Ben to the sitter (around detours, flooded roads, and energency vehicles) I came back home to vacuum water. We have a carpet cleaner and I had emptied probably over 20 buckets and the carpet was still wet. So I pulled it up from the side. The pad was ruined, and since it was now close to when I needed to leave for lacrosse practice, I just left the carpet pulled over.
Amanda and I decided on the phone that I would at least get all the padding out and maybe, or maybe not, reinstall the carpet after drying it….it would depend upon the floor underneath that we expected to be concrete. But when I showed her what I had done and pulled up some of the wet pad, which I had yet to do, underneath was tile that was not only very nice, but that match the adjacent room with the bar. We just kind of laughed, because the odds of it being that floor all underneath the carpet and pad and not damaged were slim…..life just never works that way.
That is….until tonight. Scotty and I cut and pulled up wet carpet and pad and uncovered a very real treasure. Sure, the carpet was great, but this floor really got us fired up, particularly him because he plays music down there all the time. It had character before, but this just added to it. And although we still have a long way to go before being done with this project, it was a real blessing to have it go this way. Scotty and I are both tired, but it is worth it, and the day is saved.
Moses may have parted the water and shown the people dry ground. We just hauled our water out in pieces……and anyone walking through here can walk through now on some pretty sweet tile!
Goodnight my friends and God Bless!
Tommy+
