After our washing machine flood in 2010, and the debacle of restoring our house back to its original condition, I was extremely upset when Shayne informed me this Spring that the balcony on the front of the second story of our house was rotting. Frankly, I didn't care. I rarely walked out on it and, hey, it looked fine to me! But as we stepped out onto it with our neighbors' family to watch July 4th fireworks, I watched the concrete at the front of the balcony begin to buckle and wave as people walked across it. Oh no!! Shayne was right!
So, against what I wanted to do (ignore it), we got a bid from Sevicemaster (the company that had fixed our house after the flood) for a balcony repair. We had no idea how far the water had permeated the wood, but figured it wasn't much past the surface concrete. IF that was the case, Servicemaster handed us a bid of $7,000 to fix the damage. WHOA! I was dying inside. There went any hope of saving money for the next several months! But, Shayne (believing he could fix it) hit up our friend, Darin Juncker (who seems to have magic hands that know how to fix everything!) to help him re-do the balcony themselves. I was pretty skeptical, but they were confident they could do a good job for half the price we had been quoted. I had to just trust them...and keep my mouth shut! (Two very difficult things for me!)
Once they began ripping the concrete off, they realized the water damage was much worse than they had initially thought and said the entire balcony was going to have to come down and be rebuilt. I was not happy. But what choice did we have? I returned from a photo session one Friday night just in time to watch the entire balcony fall off the front of my house as those boys kicked it loose. I cried. I couldn't handle seeing my lovely home so crippled. Shayne reassured me it was all going to be fine and to trust they would be able to repair it.
And they were true to their word! It took a few weeks, but, eventually, my beautiful balcony was reconstructed (and much better than it had been to begin with!). I chose a new gray "giraffe skin" pattern for the concrete stamp on it and I was really pleased with the results. I'm grateful to Darin for his supervision (without which, we couldn't have done this project!) and to Shayne for having the faith that they could conquer it. As for me, I always wish these repairs didn't have to be done. It's way more fun to take a vacation...*sigh*
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| After the railing came off |
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| All the rot. |
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| The whole front is gone! |
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| Building a new floor. |
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