The Devil Queen

How my wife and I sold our souls to the Queen Anne Victorian we tried to save.

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Location: Crow Mountain, Arkansas, United States

Synopsis: This is a cautionary tale. A seriously disturbed couple find the charming, old ruin of a Queen Anne Victorian in Russellville, Arkansas, and buy it for $1.00. They tore the roof off, cut it in half, and had it moved to some land they owned sixteen miles away because they didn't know any better. Since then, they have hired and fired contractors, had all of their tools stolen, re-wired, re-plumbed, insulated, and essentially rebuilt the entire house. Their only problem is that after four years it still isn't finished. Now they are tired, broke, and wonder what in the hell it is they've done to themselves. And, it's haunted.
(Last updated on April 3, 2008)

Press: Russellville Courier Article - December 2003, HGTV website article, AP story - October 2006, and Victorian Homes Magazine - February 2008 (link coming soon).
Art: From time to time, I receive requests for my art. If you would like to look at more of my art, go to The Failed Artist. If you would like to buy my art, email me. I am more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Thanks!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

A Good, Old Fashioned Disaster

See, when things go wrong, it is you housebloggers that I think about. A couple weeks back, we had a nasty cold snap. It was below 25 degrees for about a week here in Arkansas. My renter was good and left the faucets dripping, but when it's that cold and the house doesn't have real insulation, it just isn't enough sometimes. Oh, and the renter wasn't home when this happened.

They discovered it when the neighbors called because they were concerned about the lake in the yard.


Note, the builders of this gem of a house decked the floors with chip-board. On the upside, this probably saved the whole house from flooding. Once the floors in the bedrooms were ruined, the water drained straight through it and into the crawlspace.

Some of the tear out heaped in the carport.



Condensation on the ceiling from all that lovely moisture.

Oh, and did I mention that our insurance doesn't cover this kind of damage. Driving rain? Fire? Tornado? Yes. Burst pipe in the bathroom? No.

So, this is all out of pocket (and being documented for a monster tax write-off next year). So far, all new plumbing, new bathtub, new sub-floors (approximately 400-500 square feet), new carpet, new vinyl, new drywall, three new doors, and . . . counting.

On the upside, this should all be finished next week because I hired the whole bleeding mess out. See! I learned something!

But plumbing is still the Devil.

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7 Comments:

Blogger Laikabear said...

OMG. Is that Mr. Blue?

And HOW CAN THAT NOT BE COVERED by insurance?

I think the Devil Queen is somehow behind this...

9:05 PM  
Blogger Amalie said...

Ah, just saw this post...

That cold snap got into the negatives for us. We left the faucets dripping, including the outside taps that leak and that we couldn't insulate, and we STILL had to thaw them both out multiple times and one of them STILL burst. Adam noticed it when he wondered why it was raining on only one side of the porch. Luckily, it was an easy fix that we did ourselves. We clearly haven't learned anything.

7:00 AM  
Anonymous Home Repair said...

Yikes! That looks like a lot of damage. The thing about repairing a house with water damage is that the damage, especially if caught fast enough can be taken care of. Of course at some point, which it seems was the case with this house, the whole floor will need to be redone.

3:21 PM  
Blogger The Whiskeratti said...

Owwwww. Water damage = NIGHTMARE. Yuck.

3:26 AM  
Anonymous The Clumsy Carpenter said...

Hate to repeat everyone else, but YIKES! Just did a decent amount of plumbing work myself in the master bathroom, and it's never fun.

12:41 PM  
Blogger Larry said...

I feel for you!!!

We found a leak in our basement.

5:58 AM  
Anonymous Fire Damage Restoration said...

We had a water leakage problem in the kitchen, it was due to the poor standard of construction. Every time it rained we had a leakage problem. We could never manage to cook in the kitchen when it would started leaking. it was tough. Then we called a local Water Damage Restoration company and got it repaired!

6:43 AM  

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