What a mess!

[Lindsey]

Last night, out of nowhere, we got a HUGE storm. The wind picked up immediately and black clouds rolled in fast. Sheets of rain started coming down and the roads looked like rivers. There was tons of lightning but you couldn't even see it! The whole sky would just light up through the clouds. We were on the top floor and things were shaking and swaying so bad we immediately came downstairs. I checked the weather reports and there were warnings for tornadoes and damaging winds.

It was intense but over pretty quickly. After about 10 minutes it died down and Scott and I were watching out the window when I heard a "drip drip drip" sound. I followed it, and the original 1918 doorway between the kitchen and dining room was leaking

We ran upstairs and realized that there was a pool of water stuck between the two doors of the 2nd floor balcony. The outside door is just a screen that needs to be unlatched and lifted off for access to the balcony. The people who put that door there apparently got the wrong size, and fixed the problem by placing a piece of wood AT THE BOTTOM it to lift it to the top of the doorframe. By doing that, they also made an area where water couldn't escape! Scott pushed on the wood and it just fell apart... rotted right through. Obviously this isn't a new problem. We're a little worried because the doorframe that was leaking on the main floor is about 5 feet away from the area water was getting in... and in between is a nice arch made of drywall. We don't want to have to tear that down if it's wet, but we also don't want mold.

Scott took all of the old wood off the outside edges of the doorframe carefully last night and we pointed a fan up to dry it out for the night.

I guess now we'll just have to see what we can do to fix the problem. The screen door is off now and just sitting in the hallway, and we have to figure out where exactly the water started leaking through... It's just another headache we don't need right now!

[DianaB]

That's not fun Any unexpected repairs or even expected aren't fun. We have a hip roof on our house and right after we had it built we had a leak in our bathroom right through the sheetrock. It was a real sickening feeling so I know how you feel. I still have a discolored spot on my ceiling. I hope yours is an easy fix!!!

[judy]

You never know! It might be easy to fix. At least, I hope it is!!!

[Lindsey]

Well, the fan seemed to dry out the wood around the door frame. Then yesterday I removed the painter's tape from around the trim from the painting I was doing. It was all fine until I removed the tape from the top of the front door, which is right under the second floor door that was leaking. The tape also ripped off the paint on the wall, and the drywall is obviously wet. We don't know what to do and just haven't done anything yet.

[judy]

Is that an expensive problem? I hope not!

[Lindsey]

I really don't know because I haven't done home repairs before lol. My dad told me that a little bit of moisture won't hurt too much as long as we fixed the problem and it's not going to keep leaking in. But I haven't talked to him since we noticed how much moisture was in the wall above the front door!

I am glad we took the other doorframe apart to dry out though, because it's an original doorframe and almost 100 years old. It would be irreplaceable if that wood got ruined!