Tuesday 4 December 2012

Not quite a disaster

But it could easily have been.
I was happily sewing away in my studio and heard a dripping noise. I located water coming from the ceiling onto the floor (oak) and my fabric storage drawer system.

This was after I removed my stash of Freezer Paper. For those of you in the States this might not seem a big deal but Freezer Paper cannot just be purchased from the supermarket over here. It has become more obtainable in recent years but it isn't cheap.
Then I discovered my Ricky Tims hand dyes and some other hand dyes in one of the drawers were sodden.

A quick wash in the machine sorted out the fabrics. The paper dried surprisingly well upended on the radiators for a few days. Some of them, I just washed and gave to the local quilt group to make cushions and bags for the breast cancer ward at our local hospital.

And the cause? The family bathroom is over my studio. I had turned the tap onto a slow drip because George asked me to. (the cats have their own water fountain downstairs but cats being cats they like to prove who is boss). It seems there was a very slow leak from the waste outlet. I think we have both only had one bath each since we've been here preferring showers instead. Because the waste was continually filling, it was also continually leaking. Until under the bath was flooded, then the ceiling void below, until it eventually started coming through the ceiling. Jeff the plumber came quickly and the side of the bath is still off whilst it dries out underneath.

3 comments:

  1. Yikes! How lucky that you discovered it as soon as you did! I'm glad it was no worse than it was.

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  2. So glad you caught it when you did- we had an old house with an upstairs when our boys were young and had a "bad water day" as the boys related to their father. I was draining the tub after giving them a bath and thought I heard water dripping downstairs. There was crazy plumbing from the tub and all we could do was watch as the water broke through the kitchen ceiling below.

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  3. Glad you averted disaster! It makes me wonder how protected my fabric is-it's in acid-free cardboard. I had no idea that freezer paper was a rare thing there so I'm happy you preserved your stash!

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