Sunday, September 13, 2009

Out With The Mold, In With The New!

Well, not quite. We hope to be ready for the new very soon! This was our guest room closet. It was going to be Sam's nursery. Just before finding out that I was pregnant, we bought fabric to do a custom nursery. Beautiful blues and golden dragonflies. We knew we wanted another baby, we just did not expect it to happen so quickly. God had different plans it seems. Things never turn out the way you expect them to, especially in our family. I never used that fabric. I didn't have the heart. This was so depressing and going through this while pregnant was really tough. I would never wish it on anybody. It is getting easier now that we have hope. We were without it for so long. Even after we move back in, we will be far from finished. We will not be able to replace our roof until we settle with insurance companies or my husband finishes with nursing school, which by the way, he hasn't started yet. The roof is a major issue because it is patched right now. We are praying that it holds. Sam will be almost two before he spends his first night here! It's so hard to believe how much time has passed. We have a deposition in October, I am not sure how fast things will go after that. We were awarded a default judgement against the roofers. I am not holding my breath on collecting anything, at least not yet. I am so tired of the ups and downs. It seems the closer we get to anything, the wilder the ride becomes. I miss the kiddie rides with their gentle ups and downs! These big coaster rides make my stomach hurt.
This is also the guest room, compliments of the roofers and our last contractor we hired. He cut a hole in our roof just above this window. In South Georgia, when it rains it usually poors. In more ways than one, I am finding out. I remain focused on the future. Looking back, I have gained so much knowledge and maybe someone can learn from our experiences. Maybe some will just shake their heads that we were so naive. We were. My husband looked absolutely wonderful in his Hazmat gear while he removed this toxic garbage from our house. Most of it has been bagged and removed, including the OSB sheathing on the exterior of the house. We have bleached and scrubbed, and bleached and scrubbed until our fingers were raw. Almost everything is out, down to the studs, including the ceilings and blown in insulation! We still have the other side of the house to do, but we are halfway there and the progress is steady. My husband is taking another vacation to finish and afterwards, we will be ready to put up drywall. Oh how I miss the beach and our trips to NYC.
The weather is cooling off too. It was around 100 degrees when we worked on this. Below is the outside of our house after it was left by our contractor. We finally tore down everything bad and put up new Hardi-Plank siding. I haven't taken pictures yet, but it is on my to-do list. We also put our fountain back up and planted around it. Life is slowly returning to normal. Maybe that's a stretch, but I must remain positive. Our yard has taken a lot of work, but it is finally starting to look like people live here. I know several of our neighbors thought the house was abandoned or foreclosed upon. We hung on, but we did not have the time or the means to do anything before now. As soon as we finish removing the rest of the insulation, we are going to purchase an ozone generator. After much research, I found that it should kill off the remaining mold spores. We will still have it inspected when we can afford it, but that alone will cost another $1000. I will post more pictures soon. If you are just following along, you can read more about my sad story here!

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