So, after I spent a few days at my brother’s house about a month ago, we lined out a plan of what needed to be done, and what could be done in a roughly a week when my husband could go back with me.  A lot of his issues stem from the busted pipes during the freeze last winter, however, if you’ve ever done any reno work, you know that one thing leads to another and exposed walls tend to show you other issues you never knew were there, but definitely need corrected while you have access to it!

When his pipes burst, they were in the garage ceiling, so all the drywall was torn out there, as well as the drywall and shower surround on the bathroom walls that back up to the garage.  The water also went into the house, onto the wood floors in the living room, trim in the laundry room and a wooden built-in in the living room.  After inspection and water tests, all the ‘wet’ items were removed and his floor and walls in those areas have been bare since!  Like, literally open studs and, in several places, openings/cracks to the exterior brick.  No insulation – no drywall – nothing! 

After hearing his dilemmas with getting contractors to even show up to give an estimate on repairs (they’re charging you just to come give an estimate), and after hearing what some people were telling my husband in one of his many trips to Lowes & Home Depot last week, there’s a lot of people there that need work done.  However, the lack of contractors to do the work, and the insane amounts they are charging are a huge deterrent (one guy told my husband he was being charged $1500 per day with no guarantee of when the work would be done just to add on a small covered patio!!)!  My brother was quoted nearly $5000 to repair a patio on the second floor that was found to be leaking into the garage (one of those ‘found issues’ when the drywall was removed).  And, the ones he could get to show up and quote the job, told him it would be 2 to 3 weeks to finish!  Not to mention that none of them were even quoting what he wanted done, which was to have the patio tiled.  They were simply replacing the plywood and planning to use deck boards, which, in my opinion didn’t really solve the issue of the patio holding water or leaking into the garage.

We knew that this project had to be tackled in order to stop the leaking, prevent further damage, and allow for insulation and drywall to go up in the garage.  So, this was the first project we tackled.  I had created a spreadsheet of the 3 major projects we were attempting to complete with a list of materials to buy, items to have on hand, as well as a list of tools we were going to pack and bring.  I sent this a few weeks prior to our flight so he could have everything ordered, delivered and ready to go when we got there, including new treated plywood, tile, backer board, screws, mortar and grout, etc.

Out of all the projects we worked on, this was by far the biggest ‘transformation’!  I think the final project came out great – check out the before, during and after pics a well as the process here!

I’ll work on getting more pictures and info of the other projects we worked on there up in the next few days! We got a lot done (not as much as I wanted) in a week and came home tired and sore, but the house is definitely in much better shape now than it was before we got there!