You know the old adage: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Now, I happen to enjoy both lemons AND lemonade–but what do you do when life gives you something else? Something else like water damage? In your BRAND NEW HOME? I guess you do the only thing you can do: have a good cry and call the plumber, in that order. And then, maybe, pour yourself a tall glass of something cold (perhaps lemonade) while you ponder your next move.

On Friday morning I was rushing to get the kids out the door so we could get some errands done in the small window of time before the day was shot (turns out when you have 3 little kids, there are approximately 2 hours in the day when all children are most likely to be the least sleep deprived/hungry/cranky/angry at their brother/still have two shoes on their feet and when you actually stand a chance to accomplish anything at all).

As I was running out to the car for the third time (First time out the door: buckled kids in the car; Second time out the door: grabbed a handful of granola bars to feed the “hungry” children in the back seat who had just finished breakfast two nanoseconds before the first trip out to the car; Third time out the door: retrieving my gym bag from off the top of the washing machine) I noticed something. There was a pool of water in front of the washing machine.

Strange, I thought. Water shouldn’t be there. Maybe a hose connection came loose the last time I did laundry or the tub was too full of water on our last load. These things do happen, right? Oh well, the kids are already buckled in the car and now we’re down to only 1.75 less-cranky errand-running hours. I threw a couple of towels on the floor in front of the washing machine and dashed out the door.

When I returned from our errands two hours later, however, the small pool of water in front of the washing machine had morphed into Lake Basement. Water was seeping out of every closet and doorway along one side of our house and the entire downstairs level of our house was filling with water. Our very own swimming pool, just in time for the heat of summer!

I quickly panicked and commanded the water to stop. I felt like Moses trying to part the sea. Only, the water didn’t listen (like some other people I know in this house) and it just kept spilling out of the doorways. I threw Hannah into her crib for “nap time”, turned on Netflix for the big kids upstairs, and ran back downstairs to re-assess water-geddon. It still hadn’t stopped, and I still didn’t know what to do.

After a few frantic phone calls to Jon, my father in law, the water company, and some amazing plumber I found on Yelp, help was on its way.

Turns out the problem was that our hot water tank burst…the same hot water tank that just two months earlier our home inspector had checked off as not needing to be replaced for at least 5 more years. Well, we showed him! We’re over-achievers in this family, and we can do in just two months what it will take most families five years to do!

After we got the water to our house turned off and the plumber began draining what remained in the hot water tank (most of it was already on the floor, so NBD) we began to assess the damage.

This is the entrance to our storage closet that leads to our crawlspace. You can see the water line on the door as well as the laminate floor that covered most of our basement and the ugly-as-sin 1960’s carpet that was inside the closet (the carpet acted as a sponge, which was actually a very good thing for us in this case).

We called our insurance agency who suggested we call in a restoration company to begin a dry-out of the space. Our plumber was fantastic (local friends: Call Ryan at Seattle’s Best Plumbing if you ever need plumbing help!) and he had contacts at a restoration company who left another job and came straight over to set up our drying space. And that is how our basement became a tropical oasis of 6 super-charged (read: LOUD) drying fans that run 24 hours a day for 3-5 days.

They had to seal off portions of the space with plastic sheeting for optimal drying, and every time I walk into the basement now I feel like I’m on set for Dexter and I’ve just entered a kill room.

After setting up the kill rooms…er…drying rooms, the restoration company got to work ripping up the water-damaged flooring. After removing the first layer of laminate, they did a standard check for asbestos since our home was built pre-1970’s. And, lucky us! The asbestos meter turned green. Ugh. Turns out there was a second layer of laminate under the “new” laminate, and this second layer was original to the house. The glue used to lay the original laminate contains asbestos, so now we get to have an abatement team complete the floor demo. So much excitement in so little time!

And, since we’re already on the crazy train, we decided to get off on one more stop. Now that we have to replace all of the flooring in our basement we figured we might as well begin the remodeling project that we had slated for this space (never mind that this project was on our 5-year plan, not our 2-month plan).

The laundry area currently has some vintage 1960’s cabinets and countertops. Or, I should say, the laundry area HAD some vintage 1960’s cabinets and countertops.

We decided to remove all of the ugly cabinets now so we can install our new flooring all the way to the wall. And I have to say, the cabinet demo is one project our boys were more than happy to help with!

In all of this, though, I have to say that I truly am grateful.

I am grateful I was home on Friday and could find the leak before it got too out of control (we had planned on leaving the next morning for a weekend out of town–I can’t even imagine what a disaster it would have been if this had all happened a day later than it actually did!).

I am grateful for all of the helpers who came to our rescue: the water company that was at our house to turn off the water within 5 minutes of my phone call, the awesome plumber, the great restoration company, the genuinely concerned insurance adjustor.

I am grateful that we have insurance! Oh my goodness am I glad we have insurance.

I am grateful that we’re actually going to get rid of the ugly-as-sin carpet in that closet. Really, it was SO ugly.

I am grateful that we have a brand new hot water tank that won’t need to be replaced for at least 10 more years (ah, better make that 5 years JUST IN CASE).

I am grateful that we had this leak…because without this leak we never would have hired professionals to come rip out our flooring. And had we not had professionals come rip out our flooring, we never would have done an asbestos test. And had we never done an asbestos check, we would have started the remodel ourselves somewhere down the road and been exposed to all those nasty chemicals. In a way, this leak may have spared our health.

I am grateful that it’s just water damage. Our family is safe and healthy and totally fine. It’s just stuff, and stuff can always be replaced.

I am grateful because now we have another story to tell.

I am grateful because today? Today I choose to embrace the unexpected.

And that, my friends, is some good lemonade.