09:34 – It was 57.3F (14C) when I took Colin out at about 0645 this morning, again sunny and calm.
The insurance adjuster showed up yesterday about 10:30. We started in the master bathroom upstairs, where the hardwood floor had been flooded and warped. I expected him to say they’d pay for sanding it down and refinishing it, which he did. But then he started measuring the whole upstairs, saying that since the hardwood floor is continuous upstairs they’d pay to have all of it sanded down and refinished. The laundry room, kitchen, den, dining room, foyer and the large foyer closet, master bedroom, master bath, and master closet. Geez. That I didn’t expect. He said we’d have to have all the furniture moved out, which they’d pay for, and we’d have to stay in a hotel for a week to ten days, which they’d also pay for. I told him that I doubted that Barbara would go for that. He said it didn’t matter. They’d pay for it no matter how much or how little we decided to do. So what we’ll probably do is have the floor in the master bath replaced and refinished and just put a divider strip in the doorway.
Downstairs, they’re going to replace the sheetrock ceiling and pay to replace the carpeting in the major room, along with incidentals like repairing some wall damage, repainting, and so on. I told him that we planned to replace the ceiling with a drop ceiling, and he said that was fine. They’d pay to replace the sheetrock, and he said that’d cost more than installing a drop ceiling. He suggested that instead of replacing the carpet we install ceramic tile, which would cost more than carpet, but be much more durable, particularly if we ever had another leak. He said that’d cost more than reinstalling carpet and they would pay only the cost of the carpet, but that’s what he would do if this were his house. I told him we’d already discussed installing a ceramic tile floor, but the contractor had suggested instead installing plastic laminate fake-wood flooring. He said that was a good choice, and should cost about the same or perhaps a bit less than installing carpet.
I also gave him the pipe sections and fittings that the plumber had left with us. He was very interested in those, and said there’s no way this should have happened in a house built only ten years ago. He said this could work out to our benefit, because they’d make a subrogation claim with the pipe/fitting manufacturers, and any money they recovered from them would go first toward paying our deductible.
So the upshot is that we shouldn’t be much, if any, out of pocket on the repairs. We’re going to have the plastic laminate flooring installed downstairs and live with it for a while. If we like it, instead of refinishing the floors upstairs, which take a real beating from Colin’s claws, we’ll install the plastic laminate up here as well. Barbara is happy with the whole situation, other of course than the upheaval that we’ll be living amidst for the next few weeks.
Barbara made her first supermarket run to the new Grant’s place yesterday. She said she was very happy with it. The place is very clean, both in terms of organization and lack of dirt. The layout is pretty much the same as the old Lowes, and they carry much the same items. She said their prices were comparable.
Based on the flyer that came with last week’s newspaper, the prices look pretty good to me. There were a couple of odd items, though. My favorite was cartons of 18 eggs at ten for $10. Who the hell buys 180 eggs at a time? Well, I might, if I were comfortable dehydrating them myself, which I’m not. I suppose I could dehydrate them and then dry can them in the oven for an hour or two at 450F to sterilize them, but that’s more of a project than I’m ready to undertake at the moment.
Speaking of projects, I just mentioned to Barbara that I’d like to put up some shelf brackets and 1×10’s or 1×12’s in Frances’ and Al’s bedroom closet downstairs. Barbara calls it the water closet, because it currently has something like 500 liters of bottled water stacked in it. I need to measure the heights and widths of our standard containers–#10 cans, 2-liter soft drink bottles, and so forth–to decide how wide the shelves need to be and the optimum vertical spacing.
More work on science kit stuff today.