Making Bacon

If  you know me (and I assume you do,)  I probably don't need to explain why we're here.  On July 24, 2010 Chicagoland had a storm described as an 100 year rain. Our little piece of Chicagoland had well over 7 inches of rain in six hours. The storm drains and sewers were overwhelmed.  We had knee deep water over the storm drains on our street.  Manhole covers were lifted by the waters.  Many of our neighbors had water in their basements or crawlspaces. We didn't.  We don't have a basement. We don't have a crawlspace. Instead, we had four to six inches of water throughout our entire first floor.

I will spare you the list of everything that was destroyed or damaged.  Short list- walls, kitchen cabinets, carpeting, and kitchen floor. Probably the furnace too. At least $20,000 of damage.  Insurance?  Not much help.

For a long time, too long of a time, we'd been saying we'd remodel the house "in two or three years." The house, built in 1949, was starting to wear on us.  Again, I will spare you the long list of this house's faults but how did people in the 40's live with such small closets?  

The house does have one thing going for it.  We love it.  We love our yard.  We love our neighbors.  We love our school.  (And I love the commute.) We can't think of a single reason to move.

But we are going to move. Temporarily.  Because the question we asked after the sodden carpet was hauled away was "do we put lipstick on the pig or do we make bacon?"

Why put money into replacing the flood damaged items only to rip everything out when we remodel in a "few years?"  And how do we keep this from happening again?

So, we're moving out this weekend.  Away from the growing smell of mildew.  Away to a house with a working kitchen. We won't be sleeping here for close to a year and when we're back, it will be a completely different house.

If I'm not too lazy and too overwhelmed, this blog will document the next year.