One morning in March, I was woken by one of my sons standing by my bed telling me that the bathroom floor was flooded with dirty toilet water. Before I could get out of bed, Cecilia came upstairs and told me that there was water dripping into the bathroom, her closet, and her bedroom. I got out of bed to go and see what was causing the problem. As I stepped in the hallway, I gasped. My foot was wet and slimy. I made my way to the bathroom, turned off the toilet and instructed a couple of my sons to bail the overflowing toilet. They had to bail it one or two other times during the day.

My husband told me to contact our insurance company. I did so, and the rep gave me the names of two water mitigation teams and told me to call one of them. I called one of the companies. An employee came out with giant dehumidifiers, fans, and a humidity reader. The man made note of high humidity readings and told me that employees would come the next day to take out flooring, walls, and ceilings.

Once flooring, walls, ceilings, casing, etc. were removed, it was time to find someone to repair and texture the drywall. We called a couple of people before turning to Home Advisor for recommendations. We had four or five contractors come out to give estimates and chose one of them. The man was conscientious, hardworking, and friendly towards my children. My husband and I were happy with who we chose to do the work, despite the fact that the textured walls weren’t matched exactly.

Next, we started to paint the main areas of the house. Thankfully, we had matched the paint a few years ago, making it possible for us to paint all the walls and avoid painting the ceiling in most of the rooms. We decided to paint our trim “Polar Bear” white which totally changed the look of the color on the walls. The money that we saved by painting everything ourselves was applied towards upgrading from vinyl flooring to tile in two bathrooms and our downstairs hallway. Thankfully, the porcelain tile that we liked cost less per square foot than vinyl.

“Lychee” Behr paint

“Night Blooming Jasmine” Behr paint

We were ready to focus on flooring for the upstairs hallway. Our upstairs hallway carpet matched our carpeting in the living room and on our stairs. Knowing that we wouldn’t be able to match the carpeting and how much we liked the Pergo Original American Honey Oak in our dining room and kitchen, I set to work trying to find a close match. We thought that we could extend the Pergo from the kitchen and dining room into the hallway so that the upstairs flooring would still look cohesive. After a lot of research, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not be able to find a close match for the Pergo that was installed in our house over 20 years ago.

We were left trying to decide whether we pay out of pocket to have new carpeting installed in our living room and on our stairs or whether we pay to install new Pergo in our kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway, and stairs. It’s too bad that insurance companies don’t pay to maintain the cohesive look of a house unless it’s paint on walls and ceilings.

*We used “Greek Isles” paint in our daughters’ bedroom and “Night Blooming Jasmine” in one of the boys’ rooms.