Flooding and a Multi-pronged Hunt

When last I left you, we were returning from vacation to water in the basement. Not to disappoint, this past weekend, the flooding got worse. Basically, an inch of water throughout much of the basement. We were running out the door, when our tenants sent the casual e-mail, and we had to investigate. The fact that we have tons of belongings in our basement did not help matters. But, eventually, after 3 hours, with the help of a broom, 2 wet vacs, fans, etc. we were able to get most of the water out. (we used the broom to push water to the sump pump) We still need to move all our belongings and thoroughly dry them/toss etc. That will be a longer process. (and I don't know how exciting to write about).

We were already immersed in one hunt, but besides for the water source-we are back on the contractor roulette wheel.

Now, our first hunt of the weekend concerned paint. As I've written before, we painted our dining room, then, were planning on painting the living room the same color. We had a big flooring project, and took out radiators to be painted. Prior to reinstalling the radiators, I got another gallon of paint to do touchups. Which, actually didn't match. This weekend, we tried to go back with the original quart container and have Home Depot just use the same formula on the quart can. Well, they couldn't do that because (1) a gallon formula would be different and (2) the base apparently changed-which is the issue. (I don't know why a gallon formula wouldn't just be 4 times whatever the quart kind was). So now, we need to try color matching. Fingers crossed on this. (I'm trying to figure out who would be best with this).

Added to the hunt is a preliminary search for a waterproofer. We'd also like to get a structural engineeer out because we might as well have one assess the waterproofing issue, and while
(s)he's at it some other things around here such as what kind of load our roof can take if we added a green roof, which is on our wish list. Contractors just make me really nervous as they provide possibly a huge price tag, and risk. Yes, getting things done is magnificent. I love having someone else come in and give them a few days-massive progress. But, we've had contractors that we really thought would do great fail miserably and there's nothing more frustrating. There's the added thing that I like when contractors come in and do improvements, not just maintenance sort of things.