Things were working out fairly smoothly for us. The renters in the Walton house moved out mid-July and we have buyers with a contract on the house (yeehaw!) to be closed on in August. That seemed to work out perfectly. Even better, the buyers were eager to get into the house, so they proposed this week to move up the closing date from August 15 to the 5th. That was a welcomed idea for us since it meant we would be able to get out from the burden of owning two homes a little sooner. We’ve had enough of it after more than a year. It did, however, put a rush on us to get things in place before we left on our long- awaited vacation. We’ve had multiple unexpected hoops to jump through in the past week following the home inspection since it turned up radon in the house along with evidence of some past termite activity on a wall of the garage, so it’s been particularly challenging getting the right people to do what we needed in a short time frame, but we felt successful at being able to get those things arranged and done so we could take off.
Today was the day we signed what papers we could for the sale and our realtor would cover the rest for us on the actual closing day. Easy peasy. Just sign the papers and then we will be on our way...on our way to two nights in Nashville at the fabulously cushy Opryland hotel before we headed on to Florida for sun and beach and fun and family and relaxation. Relaxation is what we are in need of the most.
Can I just add planning for and packing for six of us to be gone to five different destinations over the span of two weeks travelling in a jam packed mini van would have been challenging enough without all this house stuff thrown in? Not crabbing, just facting.
So anyway, we finished our paper signing appointment with the title company this morning and decided to swing by the Walton house for a little goodbye, just Gary and I, a final walk through since we would no longer have access, we would no longer own it!, once we returned from our vacation. We have fifteen really important years of our life tied into that place.
So glad we decided to let our sentimental sides steer us that way.
We walked in and immediately heard the sound of running water. I thought a faucet must have been left on in the kitchen somehow. We’d had the radon guy in the day before and the termite guy earlier that morning, so somehow they musta left water running.
No, it was the ice maker water line coming up through the kitchen floor that was pouring water like it was a faucet. Gary ran down to the basement to shut off the water supply. It didn’t look too bad on the kitchen floor. There was standing water, but the whole kitchen was not flooded. Turns out, that’s only because all the water had gone down through the floor to the basement. The hole under the cook stove left from our former down-draft stove made a pretty good drain for the water to run down for what might have been up to three hours.
Gary had taken out the fridge that morning and capped off the ice maker line, but it apparently didn’t hold.
Right away I told Gary to go next door to get a wet vac from our neighbors and in case you don’t know it, we had the best neighbors on Walton. I miss them so much. The street was full of true neighbors that were always right there to offer friendliness and help any time it was needed. They let us borrow anything they had. Eggs, boxes of Jello, muscles to lift heavy things, come-along tools, anything. From Day One, they welcomed us into the neighborhood, onto their street.
They were all original to the street when it was built. We were the newcomers, the outsiders transplanted in, but still they welcomed home all our new babies. They laughed with and enjoyed our kids like they were their own grandchildren. All that on top of the best people you’d ever want to live by. That was one hard thing to give up when we decided to move.
So here we are, knocking again on a dependable neighbor’s door.
We started to clean up the water with the borrowed wet vac, but we had absolutely nothing else since the house was completely vacant. Not even a paper towel. Gary left me running the shop vac while he went home to get a mop, buckets, fans, another shop vac, anything that would help, not to mention new parts for capping off the line.
As the water was still cascading down from the basement ceiling like a moderately heavy rain, I knew this job was beyond what we could handle. Also, just picture me shop vac’ing in this soppy carpet mess wearing my flowy summer dress and heels since I was supposed to be on, hello?, vacation.
It was finally my chance to WWKWW.
I called a disaster service at random and the guy could come in two hours. I let it be known that I was to be leaving on a long awaited vacation and he needed to be coming right now. Funny how assertive meek Diane can be when her vacation plans are looking wrecked. He got there in about one hour.
He and another guy vacuumed out water and set up huge air mover fans and dehumidifiers. Kitchen cabinets had to be moved which meant breaking the grout that welded the granite countertop to the slate back splash. The stove, even the huge pantry cabinet, had to be moved out.
Suffice it to say the two times we have had a need for a claim to our homeowners’ insurance at this house, I have cringed when remembering we have a $1000 deductible. The previous time was in 1999 when we had to get half a roof replaced and the bill was $950. Doh! The estimate for today’s doings was far more than I ever expected and you know, I guess we should be glad we are only stuck with a $1000 part of that bill, but still, that’s a $1000 spent on nothing that I got any ounce of enjoyment from. Au contraire.
One good thing is that I have such a smart and persnickety? (not sure exactly what word to use) husband that insisted on installing the Pergo flooring himself back then, like a crazy man obsessed with gluing absolutely each and every joint when the stuff was suppose to be easy, just click and snap together. All that effort may be what saves us from having to replace the whole floor. We hope.
(Edit: It did!! No damage what so ever after the three days of turbo fan equipment and dehumidifiers running, drying all the carpet and drywall and flooring out. The insurance adjuster called us in Florida thinking she’d been Punk’d when she went in the house and couldn’t even tell there had been an ounce of water around. Apparently, my randomly picked clean up company was a great one.)
We spent the entire day dealing with the water mess and so anywho, here’s to Day 1 of our vacation.
So yeah, while there all day, I had plenty of time to do my reminiscing about all the memories the Walton house holds for us, but I can safely say I don’t think this water one will be amongst the good ones.
Next post: How the Walton House Makes Me Smile
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