The Storm that tried to eat our farmhouse

Mother Nature cast a sweeping blow to our Victorian farmhouse. Well, I should say she diverted us from one project in our beautiful fixer upper to 18 new ones.

Farmhouse vs. Mother Nature: the Battle

5 points, Mother Nature. The hail storm blew through northwest Denver in 10 min flat. That’s all it took to wipe out all of our siding, bash in 5 old windows, compromise wood trim on several back doors, leave glass scattered all over our floors, and more. Our early season landscaping is wrecked for the summer. During clean-up, we raked up more bags of fallen debris than we did all of last fall. Safe to say the lilacs won’t be blooming much this year.

It is a weird eerie feeling to come home to find your house looking like Mother Nature got REALLY pissed off and took it out on you in an ill-tempered frenzy.

3

Step 1: Battle Day Farmhouse Urgent Care

We spent the first day boarding up windows, cleaning up shards of glass inside, and roaming around in awe of the power of a few mere minutes of golf-ball sized hail.

Naturally, we took whiskey shots through the 2nd story broken window.

Step 2: Insurance and Contractors and Adjusters, Oh My

Adjusters arrived only 2 days after the storm thanks to making USAA’s top “your house got F’d by that hail storm” list. All jokes aside, we breathed a sigh of relief that USAA seemed to understand that us having siding, glass and roof pieces all over our yard and boarded up windows was not ideal.

We had roofers, contractors, fly-by-night storm chasers, and everyone in between trying to earn our business. In fact, they still are… they called us, banged on our door, littered our door (and thus property) with flyers, and relentlessly stalked us until we started putting up nasty signs. After A/B testing (yep for real, I tested them), the most effective sign by far threatened to leave a nasty online review for anyone who left a flyer.

We also invested in a kick-ass permanent outdoor No Trespassing sign. The sign was custom made on Etsy — check her out, she did an awesome job (and at my request made our sign bigger!).

The contractors who won our business are local companies in the neighborhood.

Every day since the claim we’ve invested time in contractor meetings, estimate reviews, clean-up, interim repairs, planning, and more.

Step 3: Total the Damage

One cool thing about Mother Nature wreaking havoc on your 122 year old home is the opportunity to improve with significant help from insurance claim funds!! We are upgrading out of vinyl siding, getting an impact resistant roof, and more. Here is the first round list of damage:

1. Roof — both garages (there are 2) plus the main house. Takes 8 damaged shingles to qualify for a new roof, we have hundreds… and hundreds.
2. Siding — whole house plus 2 garages.
3. Drain pipes, trim, soffets, facia.
4. Cellar back door.
5. Sunroom double door.
6. 7 window screens.
7. 5 storm windows.
8. 5 windows.Wood floors and carpets covered with glass.Couch covered with glass.
9. Pergola.
10. Fence.
11. Back deck.
12. Air conditioner cover.
13. Patio furniture.
14. Fire pit.
15. 2 rear light fixtures.
16. Back patio double doors.

Whew!! Every day we think we’ve finally found everything, then more pops up.

Step 4: unknown

We’ve never managed a project of this size. One of our contractors called it “a whale”. Well, so be it. “Whale” we are! May as well have some fun with it. Off to pick out new siding… sneak preview: our next siding will be dramatically different… ;-) stay tuned!