ohhh the horror of it all

25 steps back and zero steps forward that pretty sums up today. Today the second hired plumber/handyman was here to install the toilet and the sink. If are following our boring life you know that the plumber that ran the water lines from the basement to the second floor was a no show last Friday to install the sink and the toilet in the bathroom. Again Mike can do these things but we are on a time crunch if we want to get our house on the market as the first time home buyers $8000 tax refund ends April 30th and since Mike does 99% of the work himself we figured what the heck. We will save ourselves some time and hire it out. BAD IDEA. VERY BAD IDEA. Anyways back to the drama. So Dennis ( who is actually Mike's cousin is upstairs installing the water shut off valves for the sink and toilet and I am in the kitchen with Keira who is washing dishes ( aka getting water everywhere and making a mess). We laid plastic down over the living room rug as Dennis has to keep going in and out to get parts/tools in his truck and its wet and slushy out so we wanted to keep the rug clean. So I have my back to the living room and all of sudden I hear water hitting the plastic. I turn around and see water pouring ( and yes I mean pouring the pics do not do it justice as those were taken later when it stopping pouring out) of one of the recessed lights in the living room. I yell "Its leaking its leaking!" and he comes downstairs to check it out. I called Mike at work who had to come home to assess the situation. So fast forward a few hours. We now have a hole in the ceiling and drywall dust everywhere. Basically its a huge mess. The source of the leak was located and after 2 trips to Home Depot by Mike ( of course the first store he went to didn't have the part and he had to drive to a neighbouring town to get it). Yet another thing for Mike to fix. So yes we hired a plumber and paid him $1000 to do the job... and here we are. A month later with a leak, a day of work lost by Mike, more money out of pocket ( time lost by the second plumber as he couldn't do his job ), More mess, more headache, and the job once again done by Mike. Which leaves us asking the question.... why again did we hire this out since it ended up costing more time and money than if we had done it ourselves. Mike has called the original plumber at least 10 time and left messages and we fully intend to harass the guy until we get some money back. The house was to be listed Monday but not sure what will happen at this point. ARGH!!!!!!
And just in case you are wondering why on earth we want to do it all over again ( the construction and the mess) with the new house we don't. We fully intend on getting a house that needs only minor repairs like flooring and paint. Not new insulation, drywall, electrical etc etc etc!! Been there done that! Mike wants to turn his attention and skill to building other things like a playhouse for Keira.

The aftermath and mess

The hole

The leak point- the T joint of the blue tubing

Mike cutting into the ceiling

Water dripping from the light