House Fire: Part 1

You don’t have to physically lose everything to feel like you’ve lost, everything.. 

The 2019 pandemic of Covid-19 doesn’t even come close to what happened to us the year before it.

This is the living room in my “forever home.” The ceiling raptors were exposed and a white suit coating left a film on everything in sight. The carpet sloshed beneath every footstep if it hadn’t frozen over yet.

And this is the room on the other side of that fireplace wall. We were sitting right in this room pictured below when flames were already smoldering the insulation above us. You can imagine the wet, burnt insulation and drywall that spread the length of the entire room. The smell combination of stale, burnt popcorn and fried electrical wire cauterized our nostrils as we walked through the next morning.

In 2019 there was a silent attic fire occurring directly above our heads. 

Our twin infants were sound asleep while my husband and I were about to call it a night and go to bed as soon as Caribbean Life was over on HGTV. 

Then with a literal BANG, all of the lights went out. The circuit breaker behind us from the couch tripped in the family room. Weird. We had just purchased this forever home literally 2 months ago and everything had checked out okay. 

Anyway it was a legit subzero night (sounds dramatic). Like a true polar vortex in the Midwest with temperatures so cold that week that cars were stalling all over the roads and you couldn’t leave your dogs outside for too long without the risk of frostbite. It was probably something related to this bizarre weather or ice collections causing some issue with our power. 

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So while my husband Chris was scantin’ around searching for the source, flashlight on the breaker box, I’m scrambling in the dark trying to get an overnight bag going for us and the babies. Not like we can stay in this dark shell of an igloo with two babies and no heat. This is a perfect example of why I said we needed to move closer to family so thank God my mom was only 7 minutes away. 

Still no lights or furnace yet. 

I’m just going to call my mom. 

Wait, did I just smell smoke? 

Anyway I passed through another hallway by the back patio door and suddenly got another whiff. 

It’s dark and quiet.

Now I’m really questioning. “Um. Babe??…..I smell smoke.”

“GET OUT. Get the kids out, NOW.” Chris demanded. 

I stopped dead in my tracks and am swallowing my heart hard, WHAT?? I’ve never heard his voice like that before. 

“Get out, there’s a fire somewhere. I smelled smoke in the attic,” he was serious. 

I CAN’T BREATHE. Oh my God, Oh my God. I have to call my mom. 

Chris is telling me to hurry up and just get a bag and go, now.  

“What about the dogs??” 

Chris is moving quickly, stirring around the family room with a flashlight again. 

I really smell smoke. There’s smoke. There’s a fire. I can’t see what I’m doing. I quickly yanked the babies from their sleep in their cribs and tossed them in the car seats forgetting to buckle them in. 

Chris met me in the garage with the kids and manually lifted the garage door for us to get out. He buried me with his kiss on my lips before he said that he’s going to call 911. 

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I’m trembling so hard and cursing out loud while trying to find my mom’s contact on my phone. I can barely breathe while I’m flying down the slick street at night in Chris’ truck with the babies. 

“MOM there’s a fire, we’re having a house fire!”

The insanity of it all over the next six months would rewrite the narrative of the rest of our lives. 

>>>Check back on the blog to binge the rest of this story and how it transpired into an accidental whole house renovation that we pursued ourselves; how it stretched us thin to find ways to be frugal; and how it ultimately led to the story of Home Envee.