One year post flood!

Well today is the one year anniversary of the flood that ravaged our basement mere weeks after we bought our first home. It is an experience I would not wish on anyone. It taught us much about holding onto things and about what is truly important. We lost an insurance estimated 10,000 between personal possessions and property damage. We also discovered that insurance does not cover things in your basement, this was by far not an easy lesson to learn. We were, however,reminded that we must store up our treasures in Heaven and not here on earth. While it has been a difficult journey, it has been a learning experience we will never forget.

From tearing out drywall, to removing carpet, so much has been done to restore our sweet little house. Our adventures in home ownership sure started strong! We have learned, or rather Shem has learned so many new skills. Skills we hope he doesn't have to use often!!!

We have had so many things going on this year that the basement has often been on the very bottom of our list of things to do. While this has complicated life in many ways as we attempted to live in half of our living space we had more important goals...like traveling to Illinois and bringing home sweet baby Aiden!!!!

I like things in order, and I have had moments of intense struggle and frustration as our home has not been in order since we moved in. My goal for the last few months has been to have the basement complete and the house in order by the one year anniversary of the flood. That is today. While we have not completely realized that goal we have come so very far and can now live in all of our space and begin to dream about our goals for the future of our sweet little house. This is just the beginning of a long journey...



This is actually before we moved in, and the things belong to the previous owners, but it is the only picture we have of the basement before the flood.



This is four days into the cleaning and clearing of our things.



Shem has vowed never to put carpet down in the basement ever again, for he has no intention of ever pulling it up again :)



Sheetrock and baseboards (there are many more pics, but I am having trouble locating)




It is SO pretty :) A years worth of hard work has gotten us to this point! Here is to the next year and many more enjoying the fruits of our hard labor!!!