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The Disastrous Occurrence at Chateau Lartigue

For what its worth, I have a draft regarding shoes in my blog’s drafts.  I was all ready to post with pictures but something happened.

My poor little heels.  All donated. Never to be worn again!

It wasn’t pretty.

But first, please allow me to backtrack a little.  Carpeting is the bane of my existence. I hate it. It is dirty.  It is filled with dust mites and after a while, carpeting looks shitty.  I said it. It. Looks. Shitty. And so, we had quite a bit of carpeting replaced with hardwood.

Ugh. I’m so glad we got rid of this.

First off, we had the banisters on the stairs painted white and black.  I love the vibe.

First things first.  The stair railings look so much better now.

Then it was time to have the stairway from the entrance to the first floor made nice by getting rid of the carpeting and replaced with hardwood.  I love the vibe.

The process. It looks beautiful.

I love our stairs!

At the same time, we had the carpeting in the living room replaced with hardwood.  It turned out lovely and we both love the vibe.

I feel like I’m back in NYC with the hardwood in the living room…

It makes my heart happy!

Yes. It was a mess for a few days because all the furniture had to be moved but it was no big deal. My husband paid a couple of teenaged boys down the street and all was well.

Furniture had to be moved but it was so worth the trouble!

Then it happened.  The disaster.

We have a fridge and the fridge has an ice maker and water faucet. You know. Modern conveniences.  We’ve had the fridge since we moved here 13 years ago.   My husband noticed a puddle of water that appeared to be oozing from the bottom of our fridge.  He cleaned it up.  Shortly thereafter, another puddle appeared.  In the meantime, he figured the fridge had passed away and it was time to buy a new one and so he did.  He also called up our homeowner’s insurance to see if there was any damage from the leak.

This is similar to what our fridge leak looked like. I didn’t take a pic–this is from the internet.

Well, my friends, that leak must have started quite some time ago because the leak made its way down to the little storage room (that is fixed to house another bathroom but we haven’t gotten around to it so it is used for storage).   A section of the ceiling had to be ripped out.  The other odd thing is I was doing laundry a few weeks back and I heard dripping from the walls.  My husband said it was the house noises but looking back–I can bet it was the fridge leaking.

Before and after. It’s weird because the after photo has glare that makes it look like there’s damage but it isn’t. It was the glare from my camera and the lights.

Then the fridge had to be moved.  In the meantime, my husband paid for the new fridge and he paused the delivery—which was a good thing.  The water damage was worse than we thought.  Hardwood in the kitchen had to be ripped out.  The flooring in the pantry had to be ripped out.

The fridge was moved and is no longer leaking.  That’s a portion of the floor that was ripped up. It’s such a fine view from the sunroom.

Special industrial -sized machines to soak up the water had to be hooked up in both our kitchen and storage room.

It took a week-and-a-half of constant din from the noise. It didn’t bother me because A. I grew up in a noisy  house and B. I was used to the low-flying planes landing at both LaGuardia and JFK.

These machines, although smaller, were also downstairs.

Water water everywhere and not a drop to spare!

The house is now a mess.  The hardwood in the living room and stairs still look great but the painter has to return to take out the railing that is screwed into the wall so that the new fridge can have room to be delivered.

Three weeks later, our kitchen remains a disaster.  I am not a happy camper.  But things could have been worse, I guess.  And by the way, that saying annoys me. Yeah. I am fully aware that things could be worse.  However, I’m getting too old to pump sunshine up my ass and I just want this done. Yes. I sound like a cranky old lady and in this regard, I am. But–shit happens and I am well-aware of that!

I think this is what bothers me the most. The bottom shelves of the pantry had to be cleared and now it is all on the counter.

The other good thing about this is that because we’re heading out to L.A. for Christmas, we decided to not go to France this summer.  Could you imagine if this happened while we were in France?  The damage would have been a lot worse.

I was fine with the mess from laying down the living room floor because it was not about damage.  But damage is a whole ‘nuther story!

You know, my parents had the same fridge for decades.  From the late 1950’s when we moved from Ozone Park in Queens out to Long Island, that fridge was nothing special. It had no water dispenser nor did it make ice. We made ice in the freezer in ice cube trays. Then we moved within our town to a larger house and my parents purchased a larger fridge. Avocado green.  The other fridge went into the garage for the overflow of food.  The green fridge was nothing special either.  We continued to make ice cubes in ice cube trays. We also continued to get water from the kitchen faucet.  And we never, ever experienced fridge leaks.

The avocado fridge. Nothing special. Doesn’t make water and ice is made in trays.  We need to have more appliances like this these days!

 

Hmmmmm. Apparently one can still purchase these trays. Remember the days of using these?

Anyway, that’s it. That is why I haven’t written my post about shoes.  I will give you a hint though.  I can no longer wear heels.  It has nothing to do with health reasons but has everything to do with comfort.  And I am not wearing ugly shoes.  Stay tuned!

At least the sunroom still looks good–even with the mat that was under the fridge in the way!

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