Damaged Floors, Why I can't Decorate for Christmas

I have been talking about this for months now but I have never shown pictures, so I thought I should do just that. Before my mom left to join my sister for a while, her toilet overflowed and she did not tell us. Well, she is 93 years so I don't really blame her. I blame myself more because I did not check on her sooner, which I usually do. John just felt water in the hall which is behind ma's bathroom wall, so he called and asked me why. At first we were worried that the pipes under the house might have burst, which scared us, because we thought they had to break the floor to get to the pipes. We called Mitch, our maintenance guy and a plumber. Mitch went to my ma's bathroom and sure enough, it was flooded. We were actually relieved that it wasn't the pipes underneath the house.

Well, that was in August. I called in the insurance copany and they told me to have a mitigation guy come to clean it up and assess the situation which I did.


The mitigation guy came with this powerful wet vacuum and big fans to dry up the floor and carpets, cleaned and shampooed all the affected floors and carpets. Damaged were carpets in ma's bedroom, in the home office and back hall and the hardwood floor in the big hallway, hall powder room and closet.

We have a $1000 deductible so we paid the guy and he would submit the balance to the insurance company. I worked with the guy and the guys he sent for months to find a matching floor with no success. Our floors are hardwook oak in 3 plank sizes, 3, 5 and 7 inches wide and they have deep grooves but unfortunately, the pattern has been discontinued. After several months of searching with no success, I settled with something close enough.

Below is my mom's bedroom and her bathroom is on the other side of the right wall accessible only from inside her bedroom. The water seeped through this wall to the hall and all the way to the other carpeted hallway on the left side leading to 2 guest bedrooms and another bathroom or at least Luckily, we discovered the water before it entered those rooms.

The wood is warped and looks really disgusting. Some of the planks could just easily be pulled out.

The floors looked good after the guy cleaned them while still wet, but not after they dried.


This happened in August and I just found something I would be happy with in Nov. just before I left for Florida. But even before we ordered the floors, I got busy emptying the cabinets so the workers could move them without breaking anything, particularly my gazillion dishes, lol. Because we could not find a perfect match, the insurance company agreed to have the family room, which is adjoining to the hallway, get sanded and stained to match the new wood. We also decided, at our expense, to get the dining room done at the same time. We decided to upgrade the affected carpeted areas to the same same hardwood floors and we would just pay the difference.
All these furniture below have been moved to the other parts of the house, except for the treadmill. The bookcases in the hallway have been emptied too so you can just imagine the books being all over the place.

Right now, I am working on emptying cabinets in the dining room and there are 5 of them there, all full of dishes. As you can see, the small mahogany cabinet against the back wall is already empty except for the top. The French buffet server is already empty inside but I still have to box up the stemware.

This French provincial cabinet is all empty now except on top of it. I need to bring the ladder in and John has to help me cause on top is a huge very heavy hunt scene Victorian figurine.

This corner china cabinet is almost empty underneath but there are still a lot of dishes on the top shelves. I ran out of plastic bins. John has been buying out the bins from Office Depot but they could not keep up with the demand, but we were able to buy more today.

This one's empty except for the top.

This is my mom's bathroom. We had her toilet replaced.

There's the new one.

We added some extra flooding protection.

Sorry for being too graphic but I promise you, the toilet is brand new and has not been used yet. Mama is not even staying with us now. I just wanted to show you the overyflow protection. See those 3 holes on top?

We also had some mouldings added on top for cosmetic reason and the bottom sides sealed tightly so that water cannot seep through the walls again. I am having the mirror framed also.

Someday, I will repaint the cabinet. The mouldings are too white.

For now, I will just store the big pieces on top of the kitchen table. Can't have any dinner parties for a while.

You see I have been busy packing lots of dishes, figurines and other tableware. The living room is getting overcrowded that is why I cannot even put a Christmas tree up. See the boxes on the left? Those will get higher after I am done.

More boxes all over!

The wood was finally delivered on Friday, not a perfect match but it will do. Coincidentally, the wood came from a company where my other residence is in Florida. I tried to buy it locally but it would have cost me $3000 more for the exact same hardwood floor, the same product number and manufacturer..
I cannot wait for the floors to be installed and get the house in order again. I am begging my 2 pregnant daughters in FL not to deliver yet cause I still have a lot of work to be done here, lol.
I will share more pictures as it progresses.

Thanks for coming by. I hope I did not bore you. I am linking with

Susan's Metamorphosis Monday at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Sally's Blue Monday at http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Sherry's Home Sweet Home Fri at http://thecharmofhome.blogspot.com

Thanks for hosting, ladies!