Design Time Saturday Night

Do you remember when HGTV was all about decorating? I miss those type shows!

HGTV's Kitty Bartholomew

Over at Preppy Empty Nester, Katie did a great post Missing My Old HGTV on the old shows from the early HGTV days. 

I watched HGTV like crazy back then. Now, except for a few shows like Fixer Upper, I hardly ever watch HGTV. 

One Saturday (late at night) in the winter of 2000, I got inspired after bingeing on all the Design Time Saturday Night shows! We had just purchased a newly built house, and the walls were still bare and seemed a bit lifeless in most of the rooms.

I decided right then and there that it was time to decorate the downstairs powder room by the front door. Did I mention we hadn't yet acquainted ourselves with things like Water Shut Off Valves and such?

Always Learn Where To Shut Off Your Water And Gas

I was downstairs, by myself, and decided to hang a large picture above the toilet. I held the heavy picture up with my right hand, and  stretched way, way over to reach with my left hand to pick up the hammer.

The large picture slipped right out of my hand and dropped straight down shearing off a heavy plastic-and-wire-type plumbing hose on the back of the toilet. Water gushed everywhere! 

The powder room was right next to the front room with wall-to-wall carpeting. To keep the water flooding out of the powder room from getting to the carpeting, I got on my hands and knees and grabbed a small rug to bail water out the front door as it came gushing out of the bathroom.

I was bailing water out the front door and yelling for Wild Bill to turn off the water. He was upstairs playing his keyboard and couldn't hear me! 

Finally, with the water flowing faster than I could crazily bail, I ran to the stairs and screamed until he heard me.

We couldn't find the water shut-off anywhere. I bailed water while he ran to our new neighbors...who had a house with the same floor plan as ours...and asked where their shut-off valve was. 

Back he and the neighbor came and literally jumped over me as I was still bailing water out the front door.

They couldn't find the valve in the pantry where the neighbor's was located...so out the door they ran, around the house they went several times, then back through the front door again jumping over me as I bailed and bailed!

Finally, they returned to the pantry and found the valve right where it was supposed to be. Dirty, exhausted and soaking wet, we went to a Walmart and rented a Rug Doctor at 9:00 at night.

The two of us worked late into the next morning sucking water out of all our downstairs wall-to-wall carpeting. With the water shut off still because of the broken toilet hose, we went to bed dirty and totally beat!

Luckily the plumber who came on the emergency call Sunday morning to repair the toilet hose (with an indestructible flexible metal one this time) told us to call a "restoration" company, which we promptly did. 

At Sunday rates we almost paid our $500 deductible with just the  plumber's charges, so the restoration charges of nearly $4,000 was almost all covered by our insurance company. We were just glad to have our water turned back on.

Turned out, despite our late night Rug Doctoring episode, there was still lots of water in the carpeting and padding that had to be sucked out! And the flooded crawl space below the house was a swamp with all the water that flowed, so heaters and fans were set up right away on the first floor and in the crawl space under the house. 

We lived in Washington State at the time. In Washington, due to the wet weather that abounds, mold and mildew can easily set into your house when flooding is involved.

The noisy equipment ran and ran all week! We lived in our upstairs bedroom while this was going on, avoiding all the rest of the house. 

We were more than happy to get up and head to work each morning to get away from the sounds of all the equipment running day and night.

Have you every had a decorating faux Pas that lead to a disaster? Come on, I can't be the only one who almost wrecked a brand new house while trying to decorate. Maybe it's a good thing HGTV doesn't have Design Time Saturday Night any more.

Thanks for dropping by!