The $20,000 refrigerator

The mom bag saga is on temporarily on hold because I'm still on the fence, but I'm making a decision this week if it kills me!  But I have exciting news!

We're bustin' up the house!

That's right!  We closed last Friday and we officially own a home in Pennsylvania.  It's exhilarating and I can't wait to finally live there.  The apartment is amazing but I just want to be in our house already!  But now that we have the keys, the fun stuff can start.  So let me tell you about our $20,000 fridge.  

Remember the kitchen?

 It's not the worst, just not our style.

Now have a look at that fridge.

That's a standard issue, regular ol', run o' the mill fridge.  When it comes to kitchens and appliances, standard issue-regular ol'-run o' the mill does NOT work for my food/wine snob husband.  With him traveling less and being home more, the kitchen MUST be up to his exacting standards.

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that he was up night after night after NIGHT researching and comparing and reading reviews on every fridge under the sun.  We both we knew we wanted all stainless appliances but that's where it stopped for me.  My only requirement beyond that is that it hold food and keep things cold.  Cubic feet, door style, stainless finishes (which ps, did you know there's like a billion different kinds of stainless?), all went over my head and I zoned out every time he talked about it.

The problem is that the hole for the fridge is too tiny for the fridge that Drew wanted.  With a wall on one side and cabinets on the other, that became a bigger issue overnight.  Then he started talking about knocking down walls to make room for it, flip-flopping cabinets, raising the cabinets, all of which was going to cost money.

THEN came the range.  It's electric which in Drew's eyes, is an abomination before the Food Gods.  

So with the stainless fridge came the matching stainless gas range.  Well, you can't leave out the dishwasher, so that got added to the pile.  Then we needed a microwave/range hood combo.  Add the garbage disposal, and we have a fully stocked kitchen.

Then we were like, wellll........

And that's when this happened.

See, what had had happened was....

On the fridge side of the kitchen, the desk wasn't actually high enough for a regular chair to fit so we were going to have to raise that portion of the cabinet.  That would require knocking out the soffit above the cabinets, which wasn't a big deal because I didn't like it anyway.  But THEN they started talking about raising all the cabinets, which would require more backsplash. Well, we weren't going to buy more of a backsplash we didn't care for, so we got a new one.  THEN, since we're doing the backsplash, we MIGHT AS WELL replace the sink with one we really like, which would mean replacing the countertops.  MIGHT AS WELL.

THEN the microwave/range hood combo wasn't going to have enough clearance, so the cabinets above the range would have to go anyway, and since you knocked out the soffit on one side you have to do the same to the other.  AND since you're raising the cabinets on one side, you gotta do the same because we must have symmetry.

Drew's co-worker's husband is a contractor so the two of them are going to do most of the work themselves, which will save us a ton of money, which means more money for curtains, artwork, new bedsheets, you know, all the things that really matter.

The appliances get delivered tomorrow and I think Drew should have most of the demo done within a couple of days.  Since Friday, he's been at the house every spare moment getting everything ready.  I am a smidge jealous that he's been getting to do all the fun knocking-down-walls stuff, but I got to do a little demo of my own.  Observe.

I'm so HGTV from Desiree on Vimeo.

It is much harder to swing a hammer than I thought.