Adventures in Home Ownership

So I've been excited to have some extra time these days and have really been revving up to work on projects around the house. It'll be great to get some of those annoying little things finished up that I just haven't had the time to touch. I've been in a super do-it-yourself mood and no project has seemed to big. Until today...

I got home from work around 2, took the dog out and noticed that the gutter repair guy was at the house and had a ladder propped up against the roof. I was really excited about that because I was worried that if the gutter kept falling off, eventually the roof would leak or something and we'd have a major problem on our hands. I was super worried about leaking and didn't want that to happen, so I was pleased the guy was out here so fast.

I went back in the house with the dog to realize... the kitchen was flooded. Inches of water stood on the kitchen floor and the dog's bed and blankets were soaked. The first inch of the chair legs were under water. The wine fridge was now in a puddle instead of on solid ground. And there was a big, wet tear in the drywall near the sliding glass door.

The gutter guy had wanted to check that the gutter was flowing correctly, so he used the hose outside to fill it with water and watch it drain. Unfortunately, the pipe connecting to that hose had a break and when he turned it on, it blasted water through the wall and into the kitchen. The gutter repair man never knew there was a problem. The dog though was probably going nuts watching it happen.

We were lucky because nothing in the kitchen was really damaged, except the dog bed that isn't drying out right so we are going to toss it.

We went right out to Home Depot and found a guy in the plumbing aisle to ask. He said it was an easy fix and handed us a new nozzle, a connecting pipe and some other connecting something. He explained how to do it and it did sounds like a breeze so we bought what he recommended and came home.

Well, about 3 minutes at home proved that this project was going to be way over our heads. First of all, how do we even get the broken nozzle out of the cement and brick wall!? Yeah, it's pretty much impossible. The only good thing that came out of this adventure was that we found where the water shut-off valve is in the house. So all of those purchases are going to go back to Home Depot. My husband ended up taping up the pipes and when we ran the water it didn't leak. So I think we are going to call that good enough. We'll have to repair the drywall later. Until then, there is the doggie gate in front of it to keep it safe.

Our storm door also broke recently so while we were at Home Depot, we picked up a replacement handle for it. We took apart the current broken handle and started to put in the new one. Well.. apparently our door is 1.59 inches, and the handle we bought is only good for doors up to 1.25 inches. Excellent. So we put the old, broken handle on the door.

That was a lot of work today for very little positive results :P I love owning a house :D