The 5th Brick House On The Right: Row Row Row your boat .. gently through our basement.

I wish I was joking. Our basement flooded. Our finished family room / play room / husbands office flooded.

Judging by the water mark on the wall I am guessing around 3 inches of water entered our basement at some point Saturday night while we slept .. while a storm raged on outside. Sunday morning when I stepped off the last step into the basement and the water squished between my toes I knew it was all over..

We spent the better part of 8 hours moving everything up stairs. EVERYTHING. 800 sqft of living space worth of stuff .. crammed into my tiny living room!

The best news is that I was a good mama the night of the flood .. and I had picked up the basement! So the loss was minimal!!

The carpet and walls are a total loss, way to much water damage. If this ever happens to you ... relax, dont panic. Pick up anything off the floor that is being damaged! Remember plastic, tubs and things safely on shelves ARE NOT BEING DAMAGED, look for wooden, paper, stray items on the floor, electronics .. that sort of thing!

Once the first wave of panic is over ... call your insurance company! We use Nationwide and they have always been super helpful! (No they did not ask me to say anything nice about them .. my opinions are mine) We were told we could remove everything from the house and huck it in the yard and they would take pictures the following day.

After the adjuster came to measure, snap pictures and talk to us we were given the green light for demo.

Our basement was nothing special .. Berber carpet and paneling on the walls. See the water line? Lucky you this is not a smelling blog .. because trust me, it was bad.

(this is rain water back up that flooded, NOT dukie water. Yes I said dukie.)

When you file an insurance claim you are given x amount for the damage to your house and x amount for damaged stuff. We already know we will receive $5000 for the house damage, that's the carpet and walls. Our insurance guy will cap the house repairs at 5k because over that and our mortgage holder would need to do their own inspection to check the structural integrity of our house .. which is totally not needed. Oh-. and this only works if you have homeowners insurance! And if you carry "storm sewer back up" insurance! And if you actually carry enough insurance!! So check your policy! We were smart .. we are, maybe even slightly over insured.

Lets talk demo. I had never removed carpet before .. and its not that hard! I picked up a carpet knife (basically a box cutter with a special angel to the handle and a blade that is sharp on all sides) a roll of duct tape and some PINK work gloves! Or glubs as my daughter calls them.

Check with your local trash removal company for how they want you to throw away carpet. Ours wants us in no less then 4 feet wide sections, tightly rolled and taped or tied shut. Stacked on the curb for trash day. Easy peasy! The carpet knife made short work of the carpet! I just sliced down the carpet at around the 4 foot mark from wall to wall. I went IN the direction of the grain of the carpet. Once it was cut I peeled back the edge and started to roll.

Once I had a roll I taped it together and my sweet husband threw them outside! They were water logged and heavy .. HEAVY .. and drippy.. and they smelled .. UGH. I removed the carpet pad in the same way. We were soooooooooo lucky .. the guys who installed this carpet before we bought the house .. they were kind enough to use about 20 staples to hold down the carpet pad. That's it, just 20. In the whole 20x15 foot basement .. 20 staples! It took me about 3 hours to move all the carpet and stack it on the curb!

We were also lucky to find this fabulous tile under our carpet! Gorgeous I know! Really though .. its ugly asbestos tile, glued to the concrete sub-floor .. but handles water VERY well .. so this tile was able to dry and we don't have to mess with the sub-floor or any other sort of vapor barrier! Which means we can re-carpet right over the top! See what piece of wood next to the wall? That's a carpet tac strip, it held the carpet in place! I used a crow bar to pry it up and in about 10 minutes the whole room was smooth and clean and ready for new flooring!

Next step - removing the wet paneling!

These are the parties I link to each week! Check them out.