A Busted Pipe

Where I live is where I work. I work at a student community apartment complex and I basically work for my rent. I've lived here longer than I've actually worked here. Lived here for four years total and moved on the property a total of four times. No it's not because we are forced to move out when school is out for the summer like the dorms, but due to certain circumstances that rose at times of my life, moving was the only option. Fast forward to this beautiful bedroom of mine.

I'm not sure if I've ever expressed my love for Christmas lights, but if you've ever been in any room of mine, you would see that for yourself. Also, I cannot stand blank wall space. For some reason, I can fill up a wall and to me it all just makes sense. This cute little quaint apartment is the one i've been happiest in for a very long while. Four bedrooms and one of them was mine all mine. Four walls to build off of. And just when everything was CLEAN and perfect.... something very unexpected happened. I was sitting in my room working on a HUGE project I had just been giving when the fire alarm started going off in our apartment. One of my roommates joined me in the living room to see if I accidentally was burning something in the kitchen. After a few minutes of fanning the smoke detectors, we realized the whole building was hearing the fire alarms as well so we decided to make our way downstairs. I went into my room to grab my phone and a jacket and I heard the sound of running water. I looked up at my ceiling above my closet and saw what I was hoping was a dream. Water was shooting out of my closet. But not just any water... old muddy stagnant sprinkler water.  pipe had busted in our apartment. I frantically grabbed my phone, laptop, and put shoes on and ran down to the office as fast as I could only to see a waterfall of the brown water coming out of MY room's window and over four inches of water making it's way down the entire hallway and all of the rooms under us... We live on the 4th floor. 

When I finally got to see my room this is pretty much how it looked. Everything off of my beautiful walls had been taken down and at this point I thought EVERYTHING was just ruined. All that remained was mud and an awful smell. My pretty green vintage bedspread was brown. There was muddy water coming from everywhere. And I cannot stress enough the word MUDDY and EVERYWHERE. 

My bathroom even had muddy water coming out of the electrical sockets along with the air vents. And yes that is a LILLY PULITZER tote on the floor. Talk about a sickening feeling in your stomach. I will report, most of the mud came out of it. Thank the Lord.

The living room has holes in the wall that the water had made to make its way though. There used to be carpet, but it all had to be ripped up after the water was VACUUMED from it. Ever seen water vacuumed up before? Me neither.

When I went in a few days later to see the extent of the damage, I came across the only remaining things on the walls, my Baja Burrito posters that I've been collecting for years and the two paintings my cousins had made for me. All of which are my favorite things on my walls. Here's a background on my Baja posters. Baja Burrito is my favorite restaurant I've ever encountered. My aunt Laurie discovered it one day on her lunch break at work and we've been hooked ever since. She was single at the time and I was in middle school. We used to have these Lacey and Laurie thrifting days (and still occasionally have) when we spend alllll morning thrifting and goofing off then it's a tradition to get Baja for lunch. Baja started selling these posters for $5. They only make 100 posters because they're hand stagnated the old fashioned way from Hatch Show Print in Nashville. There are 9 posters in all (they probably release about one a year) and I have 7 of the 9. Once these 100 posters are gone, NO more are made. So we've been collecting these for quite some time now. I went into my room to see if they were a total loss. The guy working in there was fixing to take them down and I asked him if I could just take them with me. His response was, "Are you sure you don't want to trash those? They got wet..." My response?? "UM No I do not want to trash those. Those are limited edition of 100 and I've been collecting them for years! " Before I could even think to do anything I had them all off the wall and in my possession. I could not stand to think that he was going to throw them away! Especially without my permission! Mind you, this was before I was able to go through any of my things and my first thought was... If he was going to throw away my posters, what else has he already thrown away?

Luckily I do not believe they threw any of my things away. This was all of the laundry that my precious Mama did for me. Anything from socks to shirts to aprons to bedsheets to pillows. Basically anything that was made of cloth had to be washed and anything that wasn't had to be wiped off. Every book, every lamp, every pan, every picture, every shoe. It was by far the biggest mess I've ever seen. And there's no way I could've done this without the help from my mom and dad. They truly are the biggest blessing in all of this. The two of them and my awesome boyfriend PB that let me stay with him a few nights before I was able to move apartments. Surprisingly not everything was a total loss, in fact most of my stuff was able o be saved! With a lot of work of course. All together about 40 loads of laundry was done total. Needless to say, mom and I are DONE washing clothes for a while.

Now.... DUN DUN DUN DUN!

Welcome to my new apartment.

Same trend of course, same ole LD. Christmas lights are a must. And my tapestry?? TO DIE FOR. My bed is now the coziest spot I've ever been in and I never want to leave it.

One thing I was most worried about finding was my salt rock candle that my aunt Laurie gave me. You see when we packed everything up, we had workers waiting on us so they could tear down all of the wet walls. So everything being packed was just thrown into bags. Mud, wetness and all. The positive vibes this thing gives off are insane. When I found it in the last bag I unpacked, I almost broke down in tears.

Moving and cleaning is no fun what so ever but there was one great thing that came out of all of this. I moved from sharing a four bedroom apartment to having my own studio apartment! WALL SPACE GALORE. Living by myself is awesome.

And as you can see, the Baja posters survived, along with the two the girls made me. A little discoloration gives them all more character.

Now that I have more space, my mom made me this AWESOME piece of furniture to keep some of my clothes in. This thing houses all of my tshirts. (and more Christmas lights)

Ah, my beloved bookshelf. This is the first piece of furniture mom ever did and gave to me. (If you can't tell, my mom is a VERY talented woman. ) And yes, I store wedges on my bookshelf. I am now happy to report I have THREE pieces by my mother in my apartment. And they're all to die for.

My sewing table was moved into the bathroom for a vanity setup that I'm in love with. the stool there was bought at Claire's in 6th grade on my birthday. It was in the 10 for $10 bin. After using it as a straightener stand with burn marks in it for many years, we almost threw it away. Luckily I decided to keep it and asked my mom to bring it up when she brought my clean clothes. While she was unpacking, she turned around and saw that I had unscrewed the seat, ripped the fabric off and was replacing it with a piece of fabric from an old yard sale table cloth that I also have sheets in. Am I my mothers daughter? Absolutely.

I also wanted to show ya'll how my mom's love of vintage silver platters and rustic decorating has begun rubbing off on me. I am IN LOVE with silver platters. They're so functional for so many purposes. Like for a jewelry tray or just deco ratio like down below.

So did mom do this or did I?

Also wanted to share the biggest helper we had while unpacking my things! And by far the cutest. Thanks Moll Moll.

These past few weeks have been pretty rough. I received a HUGE presentation assignment the day of the flood. When they say "Everything bad tends to happen at once" yeah that was my day for sure. But as of today I am pleased to announce that a full month of spending countless hours on my apartment and even more hours working on this presentation, I did what I thought might be impossible. I am settled into my cozy apartment and I passed my presentation!!! 

I'm also gonna take a minute to thank this guy. He's been my rock during all of the stress this presentation has had me under. He's helped me buckle down and get it done. Also when I was convinced I couldn't do it, he gave me the confidence to kill it as great as I did this morning. He's taken time out of week nights and weekends to sit down with me and correct things and proof read it to give it the extra umph it needed. Thank you PB. For everything you've done for me.

Through all of what's happened this past month and in the spirit of everything to come, I found this quote and wrote it on the inside of my planner. (which I was insanely worried about being ruined in the flood. I'm pleased to announce, only one page spread got wet and muddy. I'm pretty sure PB already had Frankie magazine on speed dial to order a new one if this one was messed up.)

xoxo Princess Lacey.