In the last couple of years, DH and I have found ourselves in a cycle of replacing major things. Not totally unexpected, I guess, as we finished building the house at this little place here in the summer of 2003 and all our appliances, etc, were brand new at that time. 19 years later, things just wear out.
We're on our second--or maybe third, I can't remember for sure--dishwasher, but July 2019 was the first major appliance tragedy: our fridge died while we were gone for a weekend. Came home to rather a sticky gross puddle on the floor where everything in the freezer had melted and most of it had oozed out. A major purchase like a new refrigerator was not in our plans (or budget), and luckily we were able to buy some time by cramming things into the beer fridge in the basement and bringing the mini-fridge that DD2 had used in college into the mudroom so I didn't have to traipse up and down the stairs for things used in daily meal making. That enabled us to talk to DH's friend up north with the appliance store, wait for the fridge we'd picked out to go on sale, and last until mid-September before having a fridge in the kitchen again.
September 2020, the dryer died. I dealt with that by drying everything on the clothesline outside (in good weather), or on my three drying racks in the basement (in bad weather) for several months. The washing machine had been randomly throwing a code and shutting itself down in the middle of a load since early in the summer, so we decided to just replace them both rather than try to fix the dryer. Another call to DH's buddy who gives us great discounts on appliances. . . and I had a brand new washer and dryer installed at the end of November.
Meanwhile, my double oven was faltering. The bottom oven actually hasn't worked at all for at least five years. We'd looked, back in 2019 when replacing our fridge, at ordering a new double oven to match. Apparently ovens typically go on sale in November for Black Friday?? At least, that's what DH's friend told us, and rather than getting the ovens at the same time we bought the new fridge, we were going to wait until November to order the oven. But then DD2's new job in Alaska unexpectedly let her go 60 days into a 90 day probation (and let another coworker go a few weeks later, also in their probation period--budget cuts) and we had to cancel the oven plan in order to have funds to bring DD2 and her belongings back to Michigan on a 7-day notice.
The upper oven had limped along for a good year after that, but it heated unevenly and at least once a week screamed at you and threw a code during the heating process (the code and screaming alarm were 'fixed' by shutting the oven off and trying again, the uneven heating was unpredictable). When that issue started happening multiple times a week, we knew it had to go. So last fall we decided to bite the bullet and order a new double oven. Waiting, of course, for the November price cuts to put in the order. And with all the shortages of computer chips and other manufacturing necessities, we were told that our oven was on the 'to be built' list, but no idea of when it would actually arrive. It finally showed up at his store at the beginning of February 2022. It's so great to have two fully working ovens again! Holiday meals for a dozen-plus people (if Brad comes, we will be 15 for Thanksgiving this year,) are so much easier to cook now! And the interior of the ovens is a really cool blue, not the black or gray that I've always known ovens to be. I love it!
Backing up to Spring 2021, I told DH that I thought our water softener was no longer working. It was full of salt, and went through the motions of recharging, yet the water seemed 'hard' to me--not the normal amount of suds when washing dishes, or my hair, and iron stains were showing up in the sinks, shower, and toilets. He checked for a salt bridge--emptying out most of the salt and finding no salt bridge-- and manually recharged the softener several times. Which gave us soft water a few times, but then stopped doing the trick. In November 2021 he finally agreed that the softener was dead, and bought a new one. It's so lovely to take a shower again without feeling like you are building up a crust on your skin. Not to mention that I no longer have to scrub hard water stains out of the sinks, etc, on a weekly basis.
And then. . . he noticed that the outer edge of my kitchen sink was rusting out from underneath and curling outward. I'd actually told him about it for years (honestly, his mind has been so much on his overwhelming job demands the last handful of years it's in one ear and out the other with him), but suddenly when he realized the extent of the damage, he felt the need to replace the sink immediately, stating he didn't want me to accidentally cut myself on the rough edge.
I'll tell you, finding a new sink the same size and style of my existing kitchen sink (two bowls equal size, extra deep, with room to fit a 9"x13" pan flat in the bottom, drop in not under-mount, NOT stainless steel) was not easy. Understatement of the year.
There were several heated discussions in several home improvement stores before I found the sink. What can I say; I don't give a fig for trends, and I do a lot of cooking and baking and canning and know what works for big cookware and what doesn't when it comes to sink design. I also personally hate stainless steel for a home kitchen. . . Like white walls, it's just too industrial.
Oh, and along the way from Spring to Fall 2021, we also had to replace the garbage disposal under the kitchen sink (now on our 3rd disposal since 2003), and the light fixture in the half-bath off the mudroom.
To sum it up, in the past three years we've updated my laundry room (DH also built a pedestal-like shelf for the new washer and dryer to sit on so they are easier to reach into, being front loaders)--using scrap lumber we had on hand, that was cheaper than $150-$300 each to purchase pedestals with the appliances-- and refreshed my kitchen. Well, refreshed in terms of appliances and sink that is--we didn't change the layout at all. Because I love my kitchen just the way it is-- designed by me nearly 20 years ago for way I cook and bake and preserve food and host large family meals.
Hopefully we are done hemorrhaging money on appliances for a good long while.
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