I feel like the Jeffersons

You remember that show, or at least the theme song that said "we're movin on up..." That's kinda how I've felt the last couple of weeks. I've already posted about the "granite" in our kitchen and the mostly completed coffee bar, but there are a few other cool changes that have come up lately, planned or otherwise. Our first addition to the kitchen was the fridge. In case you don't know, we went to our parents' for the weekend and when we came back, our fridge was dead. Let me enlighten you to our fridge situations.

The Evolution of the Fridge

Let's start off with the "Bachelor" fridge that we had when we got married. It was the one Henry bought to go in his apartment. I think this one was 16 cubic feet?

After Kinsley was born and started eating baby food (which I made and froze in ice cube trays) the fridge's small size became super apparent. Things started literally falling out of the fridge and freezer every time we opened it. After one particular incident with this, I had had it. I got on craigslist and tried to find one like what we thought we wanted (a freezer on the bottom) at a cheap price. Size was the main issue though. We wound up with this one, that was 22 cubic feet.

 

It filled the space where the fridge is meant to go nicely, and offered the space we needed. The guy we got it from was an appliance repair guy and he got it because it was broken and the "real" part to fix it was more exspensive than a new fridge so he put an "it will work" part in it and resold it. We knew this going in, and he showed up how to adjust it if need be. He also delivered it, installed it, hauled off our old one, and did a "trade" on the fridge so all in all we came out pretty good price wise. The downside to buying a rigged fridge is just that, it's rigged. We are glad that we bought the fridge because it helped us see where we really wanted to go with it. We are very "get something that is a good representation of what you want to see if you like it before you invest the big bucks in the real thing" kind of people. So when we came home and our fridge (but not freezer???) was dead, we were forced to go fridge shopping. Thank God for emergency funds is all I've got to say. We hit the internet to check prices and styles. We went to Lowes- didn't have what we wanted in our price range, Sears- which has the commercial out that is a total lie because their prices were higher AND they were going to charge us $70 to deliver it!!, and Home Depot- jackpot all the way around. I should add that we have gotten all of our appliances thus far at HD because of quality, price, and service. We have even always purchased from the same sales guy. We were fortunate that we were shopping on the 4th of July so SALE! right up front. We found a fridge we loved, and started contemplating color. I had thought white initially because the rest of our appliances (which we want to replace because they are base models) are white, but then I started thinking about the "big picture" and where we wanted to go design wise because we were not getting a new fridge later just to have a different color. I moved my thinking to black because black is usually the same price as white, and the stove I have my eye on (also at HD) is black and stainless. We looked at the stove and chatted for a second and agreed that though black would match better than white, it would be a big black light sucking appliance. We timidly asked how much more it would be for stainless which would reflect light and match the stove better anyway. SCORE! it was the exact same price (though it usually wasn't)! WOOT! We purchased it on the spot and had to wait 3 days for it to be delivered because it was a special order.

So here we have our final fridge purchase for a while I hope. It has a whopping 26 cubic feet of space. Unless I'm lying without knowing it.

It barely fit in the opening, but it looks really nice (just ignore the tiny fingerprints) and it's cold and it's not rigged. The freezer is on the bottom and is a drawer type instead of a door like we had before. one of the cool features it has is that everything except the shelves slides out for easy reach. The freezer has an upper basket that holds the ice and stuff and slides out too. Speaking of ice, you will notice that we did not opt for the ice/water dispenser in the door because that would just be another for the kids to play with. Besides, it took up some of the room inside the fridge which defeated the purpose of getting a huge fridge.

I'm loving the french doors because I can separate my sauces and other items, and it holds both gallons of milk on the same shelf in the door. There are spaces in it that I haven't even put anything in yet. There are 2 fruit/veggie drawers, and that strange drawer on the bottom is a deli drawer that is for meat and cheese. It slides out too. There's also this little rack under the top left shelf that I am pretty sure is supposed to hold cans of soda, but we have cookie dough in it. :) It has an extra shelf, but we took it out to make room for the tall things like pitchers and juice bottles.

We are in love with our new fridge and it makes the kitchen look less crappy eventhough we still have the crappy cabinets. I'm still pondering what I want to do with them until we remodel. I should add that in addition to getting the fridge on sale, and the free stainless upgrade (only the doors are stainless, the rest is regular fridge enamel in gray), we also got credit on our Home Depot Gas card and were able to put gas in our cars for 2.29/ gallon. Sadly there was a 20 gallon limit though :( Still, that was another nice savings. When the fridge was delivered, it had a small dent in the side (it was brand new and supposed to be in a box!) but it was on the side that goes next to the cabinet. The guy said he could either take it back and re-order another one, or give me a credit. You can't see it because of location, it is small (watch the loading will ya'?) and I had been living out of 2 coolers with 3 kids for 3 days. The ice was all melting and we couldn't really buy food so I took the credit which was pretty nice so score once again! I'm still waiting for the refund check.

In addition to the fridge, I also scored a sweet deal from a friend on some lighting.  Here's a couple of before (left) and afters (right).

Now my cool stainless look is carried into the dining room too. I also have a matching light in a different style that I want to install in the stairway, but that is another blog because I need parts and time and help. Stay tuned though ;)  FYI, due to our attempt to reuse everything we take down (at least until we upgrade past it), the crazy black chandelier now lives in the office in place of the lonely light bulb fixture that had no shade or globe because it was originally a garage light. It's nice and bright in there now. I think we might need dimmers for both lights though, it might be just a little too bright...