In the past year, we’ve had to replace all but one of the major appliances at our house. The lone survivor is of oven-stove top combo, which because of how it is situated in the kitchen, I hope it holds out for quite a while longer.
The overhaul started with our washer and dryer. The pair we had came with the house when we bought it and were a little questionable to begin with. The washer had a habit of twisting all of our clothes into a giant ball and the dryer was a little temperamental and worked on its own schedule.
While neither of those things were ideal, we could handle them if it meant not having to buy anything right after we got our house. Our time ran out last fall when the washer stopped washing. I don’t have a lot of details about what the actual issue was because I knew we wouldn’t be fixing it.
It wasn’t the first time we have purchased new appliances, but being a little bit older and hopefully wiser, I started doing my homework on what we would be purchasing. Lowes was having a big sale, like all giant stores do, and I found a pair that were in our price range with great reviews. Some not so fun moving and rearranging later, we had our new washer and dryer ready to go.
Our kitchen gave us a few months to save up funds before the microwave decided it was done, too. While the microwave was not a large purchase, the refrigerator that came along with it added to the cost. Our fridge was not exactly broken, but after have an amazing fridge at our last house, the standard version we had been using since moving in didn’t quite cut it. Also, the light worked in the fridge for a brief couple of weeks but has left us in the dark since, a great reason to replace it if you ask me.
We opted to upgrade to a French door on top, freezer on bottom fridge that has an ice maker. Because the space available in our kitchen for the fridge is smaller than normal, our choices were few, but we found one that would work and was a vast improvement on what we had.
We took advantage of Mid-American Energy’s appliance haul away program to get ride of our old appliances, making the work a little bit easier on my husband and getting some extra cash at the same time. After all of those new purchases, we thought we might be done for a while.
As a person in my early 30s, I don’t remember a time without a dishwasher. I knew plenty of people, including my husband, who grew up without one, but my chores were emptyingthe clean load, not washing and drying the dishes.
So when our dishwasher stopped working, I immediately started looking for a replacement and how soon it could be installed in our kitchen. In college, instead of washing dishes, I opted for paper and plastic and I haven’t changed that much since then.
We once again headed back to Lowes because they were having another giant sale and found a dishwasher that suited our needs. A day later I got a call that it wasn’t available anymore leading my husband searched out a dishwasher that was in stock and could come home with him that day.
A few hours later and we were up and running again. Our down time was only about a week but we had accumulated a hefty load of dishes and I was more than happy to see them run through the dishwasher and come out sparkly clean.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com