Appliances

It seems like life has simply trudged along- nothing too exciting and nothing too big going on. Which is GREAT. I have decided I like simple and laid-back.

We did, however, attend a couple of open houses one Saturday a couple weeks ago and we found our dream house. I LOVE this house- it is unbelievable! The pictures don't do it justice, but the reasons I love it are because of the HUGE backyard (1/2 acre), mountain views, sits at the top of a quiet cul-de-sac, a patio in front, 4 bedrooms upstairs, a LAUNDRY CHUTE, huge, spacious rooms, an over sized garage with attached workshop, and a massive basement with plenty of storage. It needs updating- as you can see- and it is way over our budget, BUT it has been sitting empty on the market for over 6 months, so we could probably get them to come down quite a bit- making the house even more perfect.

We have thought about putting in an offer. We talked to our lender about how we could make it work.

But in the end, we really don't want to actually MOVE. Moving is such a PAIN! And, this house is in a different school district and neighborhood. It doesn't have the parks and the rec centers that we have out here. And we really do love Audra's school and she has some great friends out here.

So in the end we have decided to stay- for now. Unfortunately, the dream house won't sale so it keeps taunting me and screaming "Buy me! Buy me!" I really need somebody else to buy it so I stop getting ideas- for the sake of my sanity and Ben's as well.

But looking at houses, and after having 2 more kids now then we had when we bought our current house, made us realize some possibilities out there. So the idea of moving is at least in the back of our minds, but at least for today we have decided to stay put.

Instead of moving, we decided to update our kitchen. I think Ben is hoping this will placate me and get me to stop talking about moving. Our kitchen is pretty boring. And, still not quite as functional as I would like, though we are getting there. We have done a lot to try and make it better, but it is still pretty...blah.

One major problem was our dishwasher. It sounded like a freight train and would keep us up at night. Ben has been begging for a new dishwasher for quite some time. I did not want to have mismatched appliances, however. I know that is so incredibly snobbish, but the kitchen is already horrid, and mismatched appliances would just make is so much worse. So we came up with a plan: We would wait until Black Friday, when we knew there would be great deals, and buy all new appliances.

Last Friday we went shopping without the kids and found the perfect appliances. As expected, there were some stellar deals.

On Tuesday they were delivered. That was a bit of a nightmare because the delivery truck broke down right in front of my garage, meaning I couldn't get my car out of the garage which led to some stress as I tried to figure out how I was going to pick Claire up from pre-school. Thanks to the help of some friends, it all worked out.

I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday cleaning up and getting everything ready to be used.

In the end, we both LOVE the appliances! They really are beautiful and help to make the kitchen look a little better.

Here's the kitchen before:

And here's the new appliances:

We got a double oven, with the bottom being a convection oven. Any tips for using a convection oven? I am SUPER excited about it, but I need to learn how to use it. The fridge is awesome, with tons of space. We got an above the oven microwave to make more space on the counters. Ben and I installed it ourselves which was a bit of a pain but it saved us over a hundred bucks so it was worth it. The most important piece was the dishwasher. We got a Bosch and the salesman told us we were going to become pretentious and never buy anything but a Bosch again. I don't consider myself pretentious, but maybe we will become dishwasher snobs as we are already in love with it.

You may have noticed that the counters are now pretty clean and clear. Before I had no incentive to have the kitchen be spotless- there was nothing to really showcase. Now, I want the kitchen to be clean and streamlined, and I want the counters clear to have a more zen feel. Having nice things makes me want to take care of them better. Am I the only one who feels this way? I know this is a little bit of pride getting the better of me and that I need to repent. But please let me just enjoy having something new and beautiful for a few days before you judge me too harshly.

This is actually just phase 1 of our kitchen design plan. Next we are having our cabinets painted. Then we will get new counter tops and a back splash put in. We will probably be done with it all by summer, and I think it will look great when it is all done! Maybe I won't want to move after all.