Our New Year's Day was relatively uneventful. We slept in, had breakfast, ran to the grocery store for a few things, and then headed to the house. We took all the dogs so that they could run around while we got a few things done.
Dave has had the past couple of weeks off (his company closes for the last two weeks in December) so he has been hard at work at the swamp house. He has been busy cleaning up, burning piles of debris, running to the dump, tearing out subflooring and the AC/heat ducting from under the house, spraying for mold, and assessing what it would take to put it all back together again. He was pretty excited for me to see what he had gotten done. I hadn't been over to the house since the last appraiser came out on the 18th. It's hard to be out there---I just get all emotional and just want to move back. So, I keep away when I can. So, out to the house we went--with our four dogs in tow.
I was amazed! The work he has done has been immense! It's beginning to look good again! And, we are no longer rednecks with multiple piles out around the barn. We still have a lot of work to do inside the barn with the salvaged stuff, but the worst of the damaged junk is gone. Hooray!
Here are a few pictures of how it all looks now. Pretty impressive, wouldn't you agree?
Ginger loves to perch on top of the old picnic table and just watch all the festivities and activities
Although a lot of stuff was lost and had to be discarded, Dave saved the plastic bins. We decided that it would be a good day to scrub them all down and see how many could be salvaged.
Scrubbing - a lot of these held Christmas stuff. Sadly, a lot was lost.
We used the fence to dry out all twelve bins and lids--it worked pretty well, don't you think?!
We wandered out to the pond - it's still full with "icky" water, but at least the water is no longer black--that was just plain eery!
The kitchen
The living room - check out the orbs--it must be haunted! It was 2:30pm in the afternoon and there was no water on the lens of my camera and nothing to reflect on....hmmmm...weird, huh?! Actually, if you go to the picture just above you'll see another orb on Dave's shoulder....it should be Halloween! S-P-O-O-K-Y! We actually cleaned the bins AFTER all these pictures were taken. :-)
The master bath with the pool table room just beyond
Master bedroom
Main bath - what a mess! Many crossbeams will need replacing
Guest bedroom and looking into exercise room
Guest bedroom---most of the floor is missing. Too many of the crossbeams were dry-rotted, so those will all have to be replaced.
Pool table room looking into Master bath
3/4 bath off the kitchen
Dave has already made some estimates on materials. All I can remember right now is the 72 sheets of drywall! Yikes! I think we have a lot of work ahead of us!
2 comments:
These pictures make me so sad. I can understand why it's easier for you to stay away. I would too! What a huge loss. The outside sure is looking good though. I hope you hear back from the mortgage company soon!
That's crazy about the orbs....but you missed one under the two with orbs the first bathroom picture you have above the toilet almost off the top of the photo is another orb...you have ghosts! Maybe they are good ones there to help try and comfort you guys in this hard time.
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