On the Mend

As promised, here is a photo of our house now that we have completed the siding and fascia repair, and replaced our missing shutters. The new roof looks spiffy too. Also included here for your reference is a "before repairs" photo that was taken one week after the hurricane. Be sure to click the photos for a larger image. The red arrows are pointing to our nifty new fascia that we made with the metal brake this week.

Next we are working on getting a contractor for our fence repair. Unfortunately the entire fence belongs to us since we had it installed when we moved in six years ago. It is going to cost a LOT more than it did initially. But fortunately, our insurance finally came through!

Since we are going to have to replace the entire thing (about 80% of it was damaged or destroyed), we are not going to attempt this ourselves. I've had two estimates from contractors already and they are both on par with the insurance. Only one of them says he will haul away the old debris though. I do not want any more debris hanging around! FEMA came by and picked ours up already, and I don't think we get a second trip!

We are very fortunate that we have been able to get repairs done so quickly. Driving around our neighborhood, I can see that we are definitely one of the first ones to get our house back up to speed. Doing some of the work ourselves has also been very satisfying.

Most homes around us still have their blue tarps on them. Down the street, the garage door is still precariously leaning against the house. Right next door they finally got a crew to come close up that big hole and they are working on their roof. There is another crew of roofers across the street and one more behind us today. This place sure is busy with construction.

So with a lot of hard work, sweat, and tears, our house is on the mend. And with a lot of prayers and eyedrops, so is our dog. Oscar, our pug, had once again, another checkup at the vet on Monday. His eye is doing much better. He thankfully no longer has to wear that crazy neck cone. He wore that thing for almost 6 weeks! He does not have much vision left in that eye, so he's close to being completly blind since he can't see at all from the other eye. But at least he is no longer in pain and it looks like he won't have to lose the eyeball. Thank goodness!

I feel like all I do lately is make trips to the vet and hang out at Home Depot. Every time my sister calls me, I'm looking for something in Home Depot!! It's our new second home.