We came home from church Sunday to an awful stinky smell in our playroom...and with 4 kids, we have this happen often. One time our second oldest, when she was about 8 years old, left a basket of real easter eggs in her closet...for weeks we tried to figure out what the smell was. We thought it was a dead animal or something--it was bad! We finally completely cleaned out her closet and found the basket...all cute and colorful with REAL eggs in it! It was the worst smell ever!

Mike and I looked at eachother Sunday and thought...okay where are the eggs?!...then after looking around the playroom really well, we could find nothing. The smell was bad, kinda like sour milk and mildew or something. We looked most of the afternoon and still had no clue. Then when Mike was helping me put some juice boxes in the small refrigerator in our playroom, he found the reason for the smell. Our berber carpet was soaked all around the refrigerator! Mike thought, at first, the water had leaked out of the refrigerator onto the carpet...but he didn't think that much water would come out. He stayed up until 2am trying to figure out where the water was coming from. He did figure it out. We have an outdoor water faucet on our covered patio exactly in that corner outside. Mike and JH had been out cleaning around the pool on Saturday and using that water faucet. (JH loves to spray the water hose!) He figured out that the water pipe for that faucet must have busted and all the water came in the house. He called the plumber yesterday and yes...he said that was what is was. Ughhh...

This means that we are going to have to have the plumber come out...drill into the wall and fix it. We will have to get the built in cabinet repaired, the wall fixed, and the refrigerator placed back into the built ins....and the biggest expense...we will need to get the carpet replaced in this part of the house. We have had this berber carpet since we built the house in 2001. It is only in the playroom and two of our bedrooms. Lately it has shown some wear and has a place where it is coming unraveled. We knew we would have to replace the carpet sometime(we were thinking within a couple of years!) But, now we will have to do it...the water pretty much soaked the entire area on the right side of the room...the padding and all...it is ruined.

This space of the house connects to 3 of our children's bedrooms, so we will need to recarpet all of it...and their walk in closets. Big job. We are really not prepared financially to do this right now, but we have no choice. It is either stinky house or new carpet. God will provide and we can trust Him through this extra expense...even though it will be a trying time for us...God is good! We are praying that our home owner's insurance may cover part of it!

We have thought about hardwood floors, too, but we have tile and hardwoods throughout the rest of the house and it is so loud. We need the children's area to be softer and less loud. So, I guess I will be shopping for new carpet soon! The good thing about it is I can pick out something that shows traffic less. The berber we have now is an off white color...(I know, what was I thinking???)...so now I may get a more soft gold or tan color. Also, we have a really nice pool table in that room and Mike thinks we need to sell it. That will give us so much more room in there! That will be nice!

Now we have the carpet torn up...to help it dry out and get rid of the terrible smell...but it is still pretty bad in here. Evie has been traumatized over the whole situation...she thinks that her room is going to get wet and we are going to have to pull up her carpet. She is a lot like me--being afraid of the what ifs!!

I wish it could be as easy as throwing out the easter basket of eggs.