A Crafting Disaster: An Early Christmas!!!

Well the day finally arrived to take the plunge and buy appliances. Our fridge had been making weird sounds for months, and our stove had become almost non-usable. By the end of this summer I was down to one burner that actually functioned, and 3 that only 25% of the coil would head up. Yes, I probably could have bought new coils for the stove and got by, but I made a good case to Ben on why we should buy the appliances (okay, really a good case for myself because Ben just said okay when I said I wanted to get appliances).

We got a really good deal on the appliances from Lowes over labor day. I don't love ordering things from Lowes, their website is annoying and they are terrible at keeping you updated on the status of your order but price won out. In addition to their Labor Day sale, we had a 10% off coupon from Lowes that I was sure was not going to work on order but it did. So after a few days of research on the appliances, going to Lowes and seeing them in person, I ended up ordering them online (mainly because our stove was $100 cheaper online).

We were going to have to wait 3 weeks for appliances according to the website because they had to order our stove and dishwasher. Based on my experience in ordering things from Lowes in the past I was hoping to have appliances by Christmas. :) The appliances were supposed to be in on September 28, and someone from Lowes called me before that to confirm that everything should be in the September 28, and then they would schedule delivery. On September 29 I hadn't heard anything and being the patient person that I am I called them promptly at 8am to inquire. They super helpful (please sense my sarcasm here) informed me that the appliances had not arrived and were not scheduled to arrive for another week. I asked if they were planning on letting me know this, but as usual that question lead to an awkward silence. He did suggest calling later in the week to confirm things were still on track. Probably not bad advice, so a few days later, I decided to use my 4 minutes of free time at 3pm to call Lowes. The poor guy who answered the phone informed me that my appliances were in and they had called to schedule my delivery but since I hadn't called them back they pushed out my delivery another week (I later found out they had called me 15 minutes prior and just because I didn't answer they moved my delivery date by a week). Lets just say I wasn't super happy with the guy and I did get him to agree to move my delivery to the following Tuesday.

Remember the fridge problem when we put in the new floors? Well after much shopping around for a fridge that would fit under the cabinets, we determined that it was time to rip out the cabinet over the fridge. Ben and I spent many nights after work, fixing the wall where the cabinet used to go, painting the new end cap for the cabinets, painting the walls, installing new trim around our back door, etc. Our delayed appliance delivery left plenty of time to get everything done.

I scheduled delivery for a Tuesday afternoon when I could leave work early and Ben could also be home. I was freaking out that our floors would be scratched, the appliances wouldn't fit, they wouldn't be the ones we had ordered. I have to say that after all of my frustration with Lowes trying to get the appliance delivery scheduled, the actual delivery went pretty smooth. The new stove and fridge were plugged in and I immediately fell in love. The dishwasher was delivered to the middle of the kitchen because we still had to get the plumbing correct for the dishwasher. Ben spent the last two nights working on the plumbing and finally at 10:15 last night, we ran our first load of dishes in the dishwasher!!! WOO HOO! There were 2 things that were hilarious about this, 1. We actually argued on how to place the dishes in the dishwasher - mind you were only had like 2 plates and 4 glasses to wash. 2. We laid on the floor and monitored for leaks for the first 20 minutes of the cycle. Awesome couple bonding time. At this point in the night I went to sleep but Ben stayed up for the last 40 minutes of the cycle to make sure nothing went wrong.

We are down to replacing the counter tops and the kitchen sink and then we are done with the upstairs!

Here are a few pictures from the process: