When a Leak Can Be a Good Thing

Home renovations are never an easy challenge. Maybe you remember the first time you tried painting your room as a teenager. It was a lot harder than it looked and the results weren’t exactly what you were looking for!

For those of us who are fortunate enough to be doing a home renovation, the old saying “double your budget and triple the time” certainly applies for most cases. This is especially true for DIYers.

The average home renovation takes between 4 – 8 months. There are hundreds of factors that could affect the time length of your renovation, but the point is, be positive.

I’m sharing the story of a close friend who had an interesting outlook on a negative situation.

This friend recently bought a house that ended up needing a lot more work than originally thought. Braving a major renovation of an attached semi is not an easy feat when you do everything from the plumbing, to electrical and even going as far as drop the concrete floor and underpinning the floor. Check out this video of Scott McGillivray explain what underpinning a basement means!

After the engineers signed off on the freshly poured new basement floor, the studs went up and progress was being made.

The day before dry wall was supposed to arrive, there was a horrible ice storm, and needless to say, the basement was filled with an inch of water.

Instead of having a panic attack, my friend immediately saw the good in this.

“Thank goodness it happened now instead of 2 weeks from now”

The truth is, that the underpinning created a weak spot in the surrounding areas under the foundation, and while this was a 1 in 10 year storm, it exposed a weakness that needed to be addressed.

It’s much harder to stay calm when the negative situation involves your family members (or even worse, our kids), but all we can do is try!