hole in the wall.

So, remember two weeks ago when I said that the feeling of homeownership hadn't sunk in yet??  Our in-progress repair work on the back door has definitely taken care of that.

Due to our home inspection, we knew when we bought the house that there was some water damage under and around the bottom of the door casing due to improper installation of the doorstep. We were prepared for the fact that we'd need to fix that. We were also prepared that there might be some mold growing, as we could tell a small portion of wall/sheetrock was starting to swell towards the bottom right. In the scheme of house shopping and buying, it was a minimal problem and definitely not something to not buy the house over (or hold up the closing by trying to get the sellers' bank to pay for the fix). We still feel that way, but...

The contractor started yesterday, and the following are photos of how the day --and the door-- progressed:

Black mold under the woodwork completely crumbled the bottom of the sheetrock. Eeek.

The wood under the door rotten and moldy. See that strip of green in the middle, on the right? The contractor stuck his thumb down through it -- it was mush.

That...is a lot of black mold. More than we anticipated.

Just a closer look.

All the bad stuff has been removed...now waiting for repair.

Maybe I meant regressed, instead of progressed. Ugh.

We are SO glad we made up our minds to take care of this immediately. Not only because black mold is so unsafe, but also because the contractor told us we caught it just in time. Before too long, it would have moved into the structure work of the house. Not good.

According to the contractor, the door he removed yesterday was not the original one to the house. Someone had known about this problem, removed the original door and wood under it without thoroughly cleaning up the rot or mold OR fixing the leak, slapped a new piece of wood down and threw a door in, and left it. Nice, huh?

At the present moment, the new door is in place and is being secured. After that, the finish work will be completed, a storm door installed, and the stairs reinstalled and lowered so that they don't cause another water issue in the future. I'm not sure if all of those things will be happening today, but I hope so. It's getting a little tiring having people around, especially since I'm still pretty under the weather.