August 24, 2010

Everyone's getting antsy. Things take so long. The relocators, who find and pay for the alternative housing, called today. Are we ready to give 30 days notice? No. We're not. The builders are waiting for us to get back to them on changes we want made. Even so it seems to be moving slowly.

Our basement is white. Seal coated to prevent the smell of smoke from ever returning. No new windows yet. My work has heated up and I have less time to fool with fretting over the house which might be a good thing, except now is the time to make choices.

If I'd been born rich, I might well have walked away from the house and let someone take on the rebuilding problems. Does it work that way, if you can afford to take a loss on the home? I doubt it.

Like most people we are still recovering from the "dip" in our 401K and, I used these next words lightly "stock portfolio." We can't afford another hit. So I am plunging ahead trying to make time for all the things I want to do plus all the things I need to do.

Being raised on fairy tales is hard on us. I want the fairy godmother with the magic wand. I want the prince on the white horse. I even want the troll who can spin the straw into gold. And before I whine way too much, I know others are going through worse times than I am. But I believe in the Secret. I believe that God's in His heaven and all's right with the world. I believe nothing bad will ever happen to me.

Except that it did.

8/15/10

The contractors appear to be finally through with demolition. The basement is one big room - no furnace, no hot water heater, no washer and dryer, no walls except the outside ones, and no insulation. For the first time, the windows, which have been boarded up, are uncovered and set for replacement.

Everything is white from the smoke sealant. Four months and twenty days since the fire, we are finally ready to rebuild.

We met with the plumber last week and tweaked our changes. We're adding a steam shower downstairs and a doggie wash in the basement. The basement windows and the lead paint on the windows are subject to be replaced this week, except for one.

We have honey bees. Wild ones that my husband is in the process of trying to domesticate. Yes, somewhat it is like teaching pigs to sing. Anyway, the bees chose us, we didn't choose the bees. They moved in one day when we weren't looking.

You're probably thinking, moved in? What? You had a bee hive just waiting with a vacancy sign out?

No. We had a in-ground box that previous housed plumbing for the sprinkler system that the last owners dismantled. Once the bees had put up a do-not-distrub sign, we realized getting rid of the bees or relocating them was going to take more effort than we were prepared to give it. So my husband added a bee hive over the top.

We've tried the honey and it was wonderful. The contractors, however, are not as thrilled as my husband to discover that all the windows that need replacing are within five to seven feet of the bees. They really don't care how good the honey is.

There is good news. Honey bees become inactive when the temperature drops to 50 degrees. So some of the windows are scheduled for replacement in late September.

If one was to look on the plus side of home fires, you do get to gain a whole lot more knowledge about stuff you never, ever gave a rip about, prior to this.

7/30/10

So much has happened. The insurance company sent a check for $21,000.00 to pay for the abatement. I have been thrilled with not only my insurance company willingness to work with us to make things right but also the contractors who listen to what we want.

I spent the week in Idaho and came back to a lot of work underway. The weak subfloor where the fire took place was replaced with sheets of plywood. Charred pillars in the basement were replaced. Support beams were shored up with sister beams.

The basement previous (BF - before fire) had consisted of one room sheetrocked, wallpapered (wasn't everything?) and carpeted that stored the camping equipment, a desk, etc. Those walls and the walls that make the laundry room a separate room had been taken down making the basement seem quite spacious.

Our house attracted do-it-yourselfer's. Previous owners have made many additions including phones in every room - the basement, the bathrooms and so on. Not all of us feel the same. If you call me, I'm not desperate for company to want to answer the phone in the bathroom.

The cable people groan every time they see their cable equipment in the basement because it's such a jumbled mess.

The entire house had been wired for a sound system that was put in and taken out before we owned it. Same with a sprinkler system.

Like so many other people we've gotten rid of our land line. The box used for the non-existent sprinkler system was taken over by honeybees, so my husband added a bee house on top. Several weeks ago he donned his bee suit and got great honey from it.

So the basement ceiling is a mass of electrical wiring, telephone wiring, pipes for additional plumbing. It amuses us the contractors are appalled.

Plumbing and electrical are scheduled for next week. No doubt they'll feel better when they know what every single wire attaches to. No doubt we'll sleep better at night ourselves.

7/11/10

Finally! Something is happening.

Construction plans have been approved by the city or county or whomever waves the magic wand over plans and says, "Okey dokey."

The contractor and the insurance company still haven't agreed on who is paying for asbestos removal. But the adjuster and his boss have recommended that the insurance company pay. Like everything else in the world it gets kicked upstairs to the powers that be and someone with a rubber stamp makes a decision.

But the asbestos has been removed and the basement has been sandblasted. For the first time a subcontractor worked on a Saturday. So the charred pillars look better. Next they seal the basement to contain the odor of the fire.

Summer has come to Portland. As usual it came with a bang. Cold, damp weather lingered until last week. Then it was 95 degrees. For those of you who live in weather than is normally this hot, let me point out that Portland isn't air conditioned. We have about two weeks a years (usually not together) of over 90 degree weather. Hardly worth the cost of A/C.

Today, it is only supposed to get to about 85 degrees. In a move that was unusually clever for us, my husband and I managed to spend most of the hot week at the coast where it was overcast and 65 degrees. PB & J had their first road trip.

The Oregon coast is different from any other coast. The trees march down to the water. To travel through a state park like Ecola (near Canyon Beach, OR) you drive through a primeval forest practically chanting 'lions and tigers and bears, oh, my'. Then there is a clearing and suddenly the ocean is front of you.

There are no private beaches, but getting to many of them requires scaling a precarious rocky descent. The deserted sand makes the climb both up and down worth while. Don't bother with a swim suit. The gray water is always too cold to swim.

My favorite time at the beach is winter. Before we had so much family in town, we would spend Christmas at the coast, bundled up, walking on the sand and drinking hot chocolate.

The day you marry you believe you could never be happier, yet after twenty years or so, you can't imagine life without your spouse and what you remember are cold Christmas mornings drinking hot chocolate and thinking the world is just about perfect.

June 30

Finally some news. We met with the contractor yesterday to discuss what changes we'd like to see made. The plans are now waiting for city approval. We may still be weeks away from doing anything new, but it feels like we're moving ahead.

We no longer need a light for the basement since we can see through the ceiling. Sandblasting will be the next step for the basement and then some sort of sealer.

The steam shower looks like it won't work, but we decided to move rooms around. the second bedroom changed roles with the TV room. And the fact I want a poured concrete floor in the kitchen is a possibility.

Yard work has gotten away from us. The front yard, as well as the back, is a jungle.

You can't believe how overwhelming it all feels. Once the rebuilding starts I'm sure it will be rewarding to see improvements every day. That is if we can still get from the street to the house without a machete.

June 19, 2010

For two weeks nothing has happened. At least it seems to us like nothing is happening.

The contractors have removed the hardwood floors in the hallway, living and dining room, so we are walking on subfloor. Keeping in mind that the ceiling below the subfloor is the truly damaged area, not every plank feels firm under your feet.

It's not as bad as an Indiana Jones movie where we are forced to cross a rickety bridge high above a canyon with a trickle of water in the bottom. Plunging through would equate to certain death. But when a board groans and bends under your weight you can visualize a broken leg without any problem.

As I have mentioned before, we have asbestos. Not just asbestoes-taped ducts like everyone predicts. No...0. Whoever installed the ductwork loved the tape. Really loved the tape. Our contractors have never seen anything like it. From top to bottom we have asbestos tape over every square inch of ductwork.

And because it is a house that has had a lot of 'helping hands at home' remodeling work done to it. We have found lights in walls with light fixtures still attached - including bulbs.

Two owners back, as near as I can figure, the guy must have had a serious audio fixation. He wired the house for speakers so we also have a variety of wiring that run to dead boxes. But in the original walls when you see the wiring that has been there forever, it sort of amazing that the fire only started in the basement.

Needless to say we have not been burdened with insulation either. At least not in the outside walls. The second floor was an attic remodel, so insulation was added upstairs whenever that happened.

When you take a house down to the studs, you learn more than you ever wanted to know. Particularly in a house, you bought for the character. I guess houses are more like people than I thought. The sterling exterior some times masks a rotten core.

6/2/10

Good news.

The first floor is in better shape than we imagined. Despite all the smoke on the plaster walls, there is very little damage behind it.

We do not have balloon construction. Balloon construction is an open shell from the basement to the ceiling.

So the second floor will be repaired, but not gutted.

The lack of smoke may mean we are able to save more of the first floor that we originally believed possible. Our first floor bathroom has a lot of wood. (see photo). This wood surrounds the tub, encases a piece of stain glass up above and provides wainscoating for the rest of the room.

There is also a possibility that some of the hardwood floors (everywhere on the first floor) may not required replacement. If that's the case, we could save a bunch of money, but what we don't want to end up with is a hot summer day where the smell of smoke leaches out of the floors. This will be a tricky decision.

With the removal of the kitchen cabinets and all the walls, a lot of the smoke smell is diminished. But I noticed yesterday when the house had been closed up for the rain, it wasn't completely gone.

For the first time in a week or so, the house and our circumstances don't depress me. Fellow workers have laughed off last week's melt down, so I'm good there.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel and if it is an oncoming train, it has me fooled.