We paid 65 bucks for these pictures…

So I hope you don’t think we’ve got ADD or something.  Our posts over the past few weeks have kind of been all over the place, but that’s pretty representative of our lives right now.  We’re in the middle of balancing coming back from a weekend out of town (traveling with a baby is WORK), setting up a 1st birthday party, juggling HVAC contractors, general contractors, specific contractors, and engineers all at our house almost daily as we try to find the best way to take down this damn wall in the living room, and really overall, just trying to get our work done everyday at work so that we can come home and make dinner and enjoy time with our little dude and puppies.  And maybe trying to get some exercise somewhere in there (those 5am morning runs are COLD! Spring where are you???) So I promise we’ll be giving more updates on the wall removal as soon as we nail down a plan.

Anyways, because life loves to throw you curve balls, a few weeks ago, I walked into one of our currently unused “guest bedrooms” to grab a gift bag for my friend’s baby shower. Yes, I still haven’t really cleaned up all of the boxes and crap from Connor’s baby shower OVER A YEAR AGO… the dangers of having a room you don’t currently use and just closing the door on it.

While I was in there, I noticed some paint flaking off on the ceiling.

Crap. Not something I want to see right now.  David decided to go up into the attic to take a look at it, and came back with some not so great news.  It was definitely water. It looked like it was coming down from somewhere near the chimney and running down the supports and insulation. It wasn’t currently wet, but you could tell that it had been recently, and probably many times before.

PS – I always get excited when I go in the attic because of all of the space! We’ve never really had an accessible attic before. I dream of making this a cool room or something one day.

I digress. David figured that it was probably the flashing leaking around the chimney or something. Unfortunately, our house is pretty tall, and we don’t have a ladder tall enough to get up there to check it out.  Plus, anything at this height that does not involve putting Christmas lights up or minor siding repair, is kind of out of our comfort zone.

And because our lives were pretty hectic, we ignored it for awhile. It would just go away on it’s own right????  I wish.  We got a flier in the money mailer or something for a minor repair special from a local roofing company, and I decided it was finally the kick in the pants we needed to get someone to come check it out.  I scheduled an appointment, and they sent out one of their guys.

Well, they checked out the attic, had some ideas, and then left to check it out from the exterior. David also got him to see if he could snip some pesky wires hanging from the roof from our unused satellite dish, score! See them in that last picture above on the corner of the house?  So annoying.

Andddddd.  Unfortunately that minor roofing repair special in that money mailer couldn’t be used. Not because it’s going to be a major roof repair. Phew! But because it’s now probably going to be a major chimney repair.  Damnit!

He showed us these pictures of the chimney.

The top part of the chimney is cracked, and water is leaking in.  Leaking into the house and also down the brick. Sigh.  Looks like someone had tried to seal it up in the past, but that’s failed since.

The good news: the flashing is all intact! Also, our almost 25 year old roof is still looking pretty good, and may have anywhere from 2-5 years left on it.  The bad news:  the roof was too slippery so he couldn’t cut the wires to the satellite dish.  Also, we’re now probably looking at having a mason rebuild our chimney. Minor details. Isn’t home ownership the best??

I was initially a little mad about not catching this kind of thing on a home inspection, but after buying three houses, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a home inspector get on the roof before.  Plus, is it just me, or are most home inspectors old, out of shape men, who shouldn’t be on roofs anyway?  Someone really needs to change that industry.

Buying a non-new home is definitely a risk.  You try to catch all of those risks before giving all of your money away, but there are some that definitely fall through the cracks.

So, in my opinion, 65 bucks for those pictures was a little overpriced don’t you think? hahaha. Just kidding. I’ve been so used to having contractors at the house that are giving us free estimates on this wall removal, that when I realized that we’d have to pay a fee for the roofing guy, I was a little surprised.  Different service, different business.

So add this chimney repair on the list of things that we plan to update you with.  And in the meantime, PM us if you know a good mason in the area!!