Revenge of the Water Leak

You know how, sometimes, things are so much fun you want to do them again? This does not apply to water leaks...you may have seen our post with regard to the cabinet screw drilled through our water line and the ensuing water feature in our kitchen. It took over a week to fix, but we thought it was all behind us.

Enter son of water leak. (Or son of a....well, you get the idea). Apparently, the apartment above ours suffered a similar issue, but it wasn't caught quite as quickly so an inundation developed. We heard a weird plip, plip, plip coming from the kitchen and upon arriving on the scene, noticed a dark square slowly spreading from the wall (above the cabinets), across the ceiling and leaving a little trail of water droplets on the countertop. Cue the panic.

The day after...no dripping, but less plaster.

I went running upstairs and there is the developer (a man who is coming to hate water almost as much as my brother-in-law) moping up a huge puddle of water. The water main had already been switched off. Apparently he was tipped off by one of the workers complaining that their radio was "warbling" when they plugged it in to the outlet on the kitchen wall. (That can't be good...)

Bubbles!

Anyhow, some raining plaster and two patch jobs later, we have our ceiling back. Like all things Ecuadorian, it took some doing. The second layer of plaster was laid on too early, so it partially cracked and needed to be repatched. Then the second layer (or would that now be the third?) wasn't allowed to dry long enough before the paint was applied...more raining plaster. Layer 3 or 4 (depending on your point of view) was conscientiously dried by hand using our blow dryer and the final layer of paint was completed by 7:30pm or so. (We still hadn't even started dinner.) By 8:30 we had sat down to supper, ceiling completed.

Up close you can tell...

But if you don't stare at it, it's fine.

If you're thinking about making the leap, I hope you find all of this helpful...it is definitely food for thought and if you're even a little bit of a perfectionist this might not be the place for you!