Church picnic and house update.

Sunday, Eugene & I enjoyed a great evening at our church’s annual picnic. Cause I was rushing home from working volleyball camp, all I had time to make was these four ingredient blondies. I used yellow cake mix & threw in some butter scotch chips, chocolate chips, and m&ms.

They turned out just okay. {The Test Kitchen Blondies I made a while back were much better, in my opinion.}

We really enjoyed the picnic – good food, fun games to watch, lots of little kids having a blast, friends to catch up with, and new friends to meet. Here are some pics from the evening:

Old fashioned sack races…

Eugene participated in the tug o’ war contest. I won’t say which team won. :/

Cute babies. Need I say more?…

An intense husband/wife wheelbarrow race…

Check out the faces in this pic!…

Lots of smiles that evening.

And without any smooth segue, I think it’s time to update the blog on the current house situation. I mentioned yesterday that we got some bad news on our basement this weekend. Well, to be more specific, we knew the house had water damage in the basement when we moved it. It had mold in the corner room in the basement, but the walls seemed dry and the previous homeowners {before they foreclosed} said that the basement leaked if the downspout wasn’t connected properly. This is what it looked like when we moved in – yuck.

Well, with the record amounts of rain we experienced this Spring, the basement leak became all the more prominent and the mold spread. We’ve {and by “we”, I mean Eugene, God bless him} have ripped out all the drywall in this basement bedroom & in the room next to it, just to be safe & get all the unhealthy drywall out of the house. This pic below is in process of removing the drywall.

Anyhoo, we had two companies come into assess the issue. One said we could get about $8,000 worth of interior work to add a drainage system for the water to stay away from the floors, and the other said that they could do that same work, but that it wouldn’t keep the water from seeping through the walls, thus the mold would return. They said the only solution would be extensive exterior work for covering the foundational walls about 3 ft down from the ground and adding an exterior drainage system. This would guarantee dry floors and dry walls, thus no mold. However, that’s gonna run us around $18,000 in the hole. {Somebody grab me some Tylenol, cause that hurts!}

On top of that, we need to buy new windows because the house had original windows {from 1958} with old wood that tends to rot. The windows don’t really look rotten to me, but nonetheless, we want a safe & healthy house, plus it’s much better for energy efficiency to have new windows. Average windows will likely set us back about $6,000. Tally that up, and we’re looking at close to $25,000 in renovations that ideally need to happen asap. {More Tylenol, please…or maybe a tranquilizer.}

Eugene & I are blessed with a savings we’ve worked hard to build up {since we’ve vowed not to take out any loans for the house renovations}, but even with our savings, this is going to be a big hit for us. Since I already got laid off once with this economy, we always want to keep an emergency fund in place to get us through a few months incase we somehow lose our income or have something unexpectedly expensive come up {i.e. basement issues.} We’re still discussing when/how/what our best choice is for the basement, but it look like we’re going to spend the pretty penny {after we save some more} to get the house safe and healthy and dry.

All that to say, we will not be doing any more projects that cost money for a long time. No butcherblock countertop, no new kitchen flooring to replace the faux brick nastiness, not even painting the brown brown bedroom. It stinks, and it makes me sad that we’ve saved all that money and have to spend it on fixing the stinkin’ basement & getting new windows, but it’s what needs done.

But, after getting all depressed about it, I decided to make a list of projects I could still do without spending any more money, and projects that would only take a little money. I came up with quite a few.

So, the news is a major bummer, but it’s part of moving into a foreclosed home that hasn’t been lived in for 2 years. We knew it was a risky purchase. We’re thankful that God’s provided for us financially, and we trust that He will continue to provide so that we can pay for the basement and windows without depleting our emergency fund. And, I’m even thinking that maybe I can find a way to keep happily working on prettifying the house and not spend a dime. {I’m up for the challenge!}