Don't try this at home

Two days ago, a team of contractors finished a series of repairs in, on, and outside of our house that now essentially makes it waterproof once again. I’m game for almost any DIY –- especially if Moxie Dad is assisting –- but identifying a roof leak that caused water to stream out of a canister light and run down the walls in 3 distinct places is not something I want to take on. Not to mention the several window frames that drip-drip-dripped every time we had a light shower lasting more than 20 minutes. And the hurricane that came through the west top-most window every time we had a thunderstorm. And the sheets of water that sluiced down the back of the house in a heavy weather and tore the window screen right off the master bedroom window. Nope, I like to think I’m smart enough to know when my derriere would be kicked.

Luckily, the man who built our house was the contractor for a neighbor’s addition during these stressful times. I’m not ashamed to admit that after one particularly bad storm in November, I stood in the hallway at 11 P.M. and sobbed on the Boy Scout’s shoulder that we surely had mold growing inside the walls and the ceiling was going to cave in and we had to fix it because I was sick of it and couldn’t he do something, please-God-anything to muffle the incessant trickling of water into all those buckets and bowls?

Boy Scout sent the builder an email that night. I think my small melt-down scared him a little.

After we explained the problems, the builder felt so bad that he sent over crews to fix our soggy issues – for FREE. Did I mention he is a nice man? And that we don’t mind too much that it took 4 months and close to a dozen guys to execute the work, guys who tripped the house alarm twice while we were away at Christmas and shut one of our cats in a spare room for such a long time that we had to clean up a mess when we came home and she’s forever going to scramble pathetically for the nearest hiding place whenever several men -- loud, laughing men speaking Spanish -- come stomping up the stairs? But. It was FREE.

The list of repairs?

• caulking around at least 8 leaking windows and repairing/painting frames that started to split
• ripping out a chunk of ceiling to pinpoint the roof leak, and replastering/painting ceiling after said roof leak was addressed
• repainting damaged water-damaged walls and door frames
• pulling up our stone roof deck, plugging all holes, laying down more waterproofing fabric, and putting all the stone back – plus sweeping new sand into the cracks again
• installing 14’ of flashing along our roof deck’s gutter to address a 1.5” gap between the edge of the roof and the edge of the gutter – 40+ feet off the ground on a day with 20 mph gusts
  
  These guys rocked. I’ve heard that the hallmark of a good contractor is that he takes his shoes off before coming into the house. Every crew member did it every single time. Still, we’re really glad to be done. I still wouldn’t have wanted to do any of this myself.