Water Damage Science

Anyone with kids knows that your house is never clean.  You can clean it, but within 15 minutes it's dirty again.  It's just something that as parents you need to deal with.  Sometimes it's important to turn negative home maintenance "events" into a science learning experience.  Several years ago I ripped out the carpet in our house and installed laminate flooring.  We love the floor, but it gets a small scratch now and then which is no big deal.  However, the other day I saw this in the middle of the floor.

See that bump in the floor?  Apparently one of my daughters spilled water there that was never found and never wiped up.  It soaked into the laminate flooring and the wood expanded, leaving a bump!  I was not a happy camper.  Not much I could do though, so it was an opportunity to share with my daughters what happens when wood gets wet.  It expands and remains in its expanded state!  Here's another example in our house of this.

This piece of wall is right next to our sink.  We had a leaky faucet awhile back and didn't notice water was leaking onto the counter until this piece of particle board soaked it up and expanded.  Sigh.  The joys of having kids and owning a home.  :-)