trying to find a silver lining

Well, I guess it was something that was going to happen sometime and maybe, in the distant future when we are sipping mint juleps on the porch in our swing chair, we will reflect back and say this was the best time for it to happen. But right now it's pretty crushing to find, only 1 week after it was laid, that our lovely and expensive oak floor is damaged and will have to be replaced. Painted gyprocs walls will also have to be replaced and maybe some insulation too.

But the biggest disappointment of all is the fact that the cause of this damage is our old drain tiles, which have never given a speck of trouble since they were laid nice and deep over 80 years ago. Inspection found that the old clay tiles are full of soil and silt so that water can no longer flow through them. With the exceptionally heavy rains we've had the water table has risen and now flows into our basement through the cement foundation.

The entire drain tile system will have to replaced, now, in the middle of November, the very worst time to do this work, and with more rain forecast. It will add a high ticket item to our already bulging budget, force freshly completed work to be redone and delay the whole reno. project until well into December.

The only good part of the story is that we have a contractor on hand to help us take it on, and he is over his recent bout of H1N1.

Not much, but we are desperately trying to be as positive as possible.