Home and Property Damage from the Tornado

Let me start by saying the damage to our home is minor in comparison to so many others in the Northside.  We are so, so, so lucky we still have a structurally sound house and didn't lose any personal possessions.  It breaks my heart seeing so many others with nothing, NOTHING at all.  We plan on heading over to Farview Park to help Urban Homeworks with tornado relief through the weekend.  Call and volunteer!

Here is a review of the damage we are dealing with... 

These pictures make my stomach turn, but again we are lucky.  DIY-ers no more on these projects, this will require some major construction for the most part.  Also, this is the first time I have shared any photos of the exterior of the house. I have never shown any before mainly because we're not as in love with the exterior as we are the interior and we hoped we would tackle that project someday... guess that doesn't matter anymore, the time is now. 

Most of the damage is in the back of our house, so here is what things looked like on Sunday after the tornado hit.  Trees everywhere! Things were a disaster, but the main issue is that tree limb on our house.

It came through the roof and attic...

 and into our Guest Room.

 We took a look inside the attic, tree indeed, very bad news.

 There is also another hole and damage on the side of the dormer.

 Our main priority was getting that tree out of our house so we could get a tarp over the roof to prevent any further water damage.

 Luckily, our neighbor's friend Dan was there at the time and is the COO of Kuhl Design and Build.  He even talked us through the next steps to take and explained a lot about the insurance process when a disaster hits.  It was incredibly kind of him, I was so shaken up at the time and didn't know where to start.   I actually found very handy Storm Damage Tips on their site, I wish I had that before the storm!  If you are reading this I recommend printing it off and keeping it in case of emergency, you never know if this will happen to you too.

 They got the tree cut up and off the roof, hooray!  But yea, now there is just a big hole there, sad!

 Here is the hole in the Guest Room with the tree removed.

 Now take a look from the closet of the Guest Room.  Daylight...totally not normal!

 Here is a closer look.

 The tree also destroyed at least 8 rafters and most of the decking in our roof.  So in addition to the new roofing we need the roof  entirely rebuilt.  The guys from Kuhl rigged a few boards into place to keep the roof held up for now.  It has been kind of scary, any little creak I hear from the house and I think the roof is caving in, but I have to assume it is fine now, if it held up with a huge tree on it we are probably alright.

It didn't help us any that it rained like crazy for an hour after the tornado came through.  We have water damage in our stairwell ceiling.

 and in the office next to the guest room, which also has water damage.

Here is how the roof is looking now with the tarp.  Hope it stays secure, it is supposed to rain all weekend.  But we are looking at a whole new roof, insulation, gutters, fascia, soffit, flashing, everything, just a mess.

 Aside from the hole and roof, we have a few more minor damages

We need new chimney caps and brick.

Our ugly garage needs a new roof and some structural work on the outside.  I kind of wish the tree would have crushed our garage instead.

Our fence was crushed by the tree that fell in the yard

There is the rest of the lifted fence and the mega tree stump we still have to get rid of (PS- insurance doesn't cover tree or stump removal if it is on the ground, major $ bummer).

The broken concrete from the tree uprooting.

 Thank goodness that tree fell just next to our house (and right next to the neighbors house) and only knocked a small corner of brick off.

Lastly, our grill ended up by our neighbor's front porch.  Oddly enough, the Ikea patio furniture survived!  We found it beneath the big tree that fell, and it took 2 days to fish it out.  At least we now know Ikea patio furniture is tornado tough!  Sadly, no grilling for us on Memorial Day weekend.

So that is the list, like I said, it could be so much worse but it is still a lot to deal with.  We finally had our insurance adjuster out this morning to take a look at all the damages along with our contractor.  Sadly, it might take a week to get any information on the dollar amount of repairs we are looking at.  Our contractor also gave it to us straight, it could be a month before any work is completed :(  Turns out, fixing an older house (pre- 1970's) is very complicated, everything that was used to built it, doesn't exist or match anymore and building codes are different now.

Please pray for no more storms or rain for the Northside, most of us don't have a whole roof anymore and rain will definitely complicate tornado relief efforts.

Thanks for sticking with us through the tornado.  I hope I can get back to the normal blogging topics eventually, but for now decorating and DIY-ing isn't on my mind.  Maybe I can show you the chair 'afters' soon, got that done Sunday morning before this tornado madness began.  Blogging about all this seems to be helping me decompress and gather my real thoughts on the whole mess. 

Sorry no Head Over Heels post for this week (for obvious reasons).  Hope everyone as a good holiday weekend, we will try out best to have a little fun...maybe?