After the storm...

[Quakindude]

Well folks, we are officially back in the house. Have been for a couple weeks actually, but with moving, I've been too busy to post about it!

Here's my living room just a few minutes after the tornado passed through.



And here it is today...



Here's my kitchen the day of the tornado...



And here it is today...



Prior to the tornado, we had the dining room set up as a computer/office space. Now, it's a dedicated office/computer room!



Here's a shot of our back porch area...



As you can see, the pool isn't done yet. That will probably be another couple of months since we took so long to find someone in the first place. Then with the summer rush for pools on top of all the tornado damaged pool repairs, we are pretty far down the list.

Here's a shot of the front of the house.



So there it is. I can post more pics later on, Photobucket is being a PITA this morning. It has been a long 5 months, but we are generally satisfied with how everything turned out.

Along the way, we've received a lot of help from a lot of people and I'm still at a loss for words on how to throughly describe our heart felt appreciation for what everyone here did for us.

My brother-in-law gave us a bunch of furniture and then sold us, at a generous discount, the furniture he had at one of his houses. That leather stuff you see in the living room was from him. All of our beds and some of our bedroom furniture also went through him as he's some hotshot builder down in Florida and can get the good stuff for very good prices.

Various organizations from Churches to FEMA, The American Red Cross to Soldiers Angels on down to the local VFW and Southeastern Landscaping, all chipped in various services, goods and donations to help us out.

Still, to this day, the only thing that eclipses the overwhelming emotions of having lived through that experience has been experiencing the overwhelming support and assistance from everyone I've mentioned here. Reading back through this thread, which turned into a huge donation effort spearheaded by Capper (Thanks again Rich!!), is bittersweet as you can imagine. The rush of memories/emotions it brings back is intimidating to say the least.

It has truly been an uplifting and humbling period of time. And once again, I would like to thank my very good friends here at HardwareLogic for all of your dedicated support, expressions of friendship and for allowing me to count myself among you.

In the next couple of weeks, once a couple of things settle down a bit, I'll be asking Rich for something to do review wise. I still have to finish cleaning out my storage area downtown and get my garage set up to take pics. But as you can see, I have ample test bench space in my new computer room to do benchmarking stuff on!

-Tom

[Pete]

You have a beautiful house man!

[qazwsx]

Im glad that you'r finally back home.

[Lead Head]

House looks amazing quake! Glad to see you got it all back together!

A question I'm dieing to ask though, does the TV still work?

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by Lead Head

A question I'm dieing to ask though, does the TV still work?

Nope. The screen fell out of it as we were moving it a couple days after the tornado.

And thanks for the compliments guys. My wife did a great job of picking everything out. You can well imagine how that went.

Tom - "I like this one."

Heidi - "I know you do honey, but we're getting this one."

Tom - "OK."

[Fasttazz]

Glad to hear that your life is back to normal! The House is looking great!

[killswitch83]

Tom, glad to hear and see things went well for you, after all the stuff you've been through in the aftermath. It's a gorgeous house, makes me feel kinda envious, lol.....I wish you prosperity (and hopefully a more permanent-standing home) in the future!

[Yellowhello]

Wow, congrats on the house! Nice to see everything is back to normal for you. Nice computer/office space you have there!

[halutzparilla]

all that matters that your all alive and able to survive such experience. congrats to your renovated/new house, its so envious and the computer room is amazing...

enjoy your family thats the best thing of all...

[rwillis]

Great to see that all is coming back together for ou and your family


Rick