Friday night, we had big plans to go over to a friend's house for a party. It had been a long week, so we decided to get take out and come home and watch some tv and eat dinner before we went. When Drew got home from picking up dinner, we smelled something a little unusual. We thought it was because we had turned on the heater for the first time and it smelled a little like dust burning. We didn't think much of it, and started watching an episode of Fringe (which we never finished, btw). About half an hour later, the room started filling with smoke. We were looking for the source, and moved a bookshelf out of the way to see smoke pouring in the room through one of the outlets. We called 911 and they said to get out of the house. We had enough time to throw on some shoes and a jacket (it was about 35 degrees outside) and grab the cats and get out before the fire trucks arrived. They were so fast! At one point, we had 4 fire trucks, the fire chief truck, and an ambulance in front of our house. I came to my senses as everyone was leaving and snapped this photo:
At any given time during the period they were at the house, there were at least 10 firemen filling my kitchen and den. Turns out, the outlet had caught fire because it was too old and there was too much of a power draw on the room. I was standing outside and saw a fire man dash out and grab an ax from the truck - never a good sign. They had to hack into one of the paneled walls in the den to get to the small fire and make sure the insulation and dry wall didn't catch.
This is the main damage. The floors also need to be redone from the ax and the firemen equipment. All in all, we are INCREDIBLY blessed that we were at home and were able to catch this quickly. Come to find out, the wall is lined with tar paper which could have caught fire very easily. We are thinking now that this room must have been an add on to the house and must have been built by the owner or someone who was using one of the "Add on to your house for dummies" books. So far, we have had an electrician come out and put in a new outlet and check all the other outlets in the room to make sure there were no other problems. And we have had Tim, the guy that redid our garage, come out and look at the damage so we can get a quote for the floors and the wall. It is really looking like we might have to redo the entire room since it would be nearly impossible to match the stain on the paneling to the existing wall. That is kind of exciting, and kind of horrible all at the same time - money out of our savings at this point is never a good thing! It was definitely scary, but God definitely had control of the situation and took care of us. We are so blessed to have our house, each other, our kitties, all of our Christmas presents, our photos, and relatively small damage to take care of.
We were able to clean up the house, put a pillow over the damage and have our Progressive dinner last night for our neighborhood. I am exhausted now, but glad that we got to meet some new neighbors and have a little fun. And, I was nominated to be the Social Coordinator for the neighborhood! I hope next weekend is a little less eventful!
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