Spatula City!

The last few weekends my mom and I have gone out looking at kitchen appliances. This has not been a very productive process, nor a particular uplifting one. I say that because this is yet another area where you can spend $200 on an appliance and get something you'd see in a college apartment, or you can spend $5,000 and get something you'd see in a fancy house magazine. I hadn't budgeted/planned for the very bottom of the line models, but really can't afford all that much higher either.

After spending a lot of time at, and getting quotes from two different appliance stores and doing lots of online research I'd narrowed it down to either getting all GE appliances or getting a GE fridge and everything else from Frigidaire (many of the manufacturers have mail-in rebates if you purchase multiple things from them). The Frigidaire option was going to be around $2600 and the GE option was going to be around $3500. Neither of them were exactly what I wanted and neither had any options that were all that great. The GE models looked a little nicer than the Figidaire, but the difference was fairly small. I really wasn't particularly excited about either package and had kind of become indifferent on the whole issue so was leaning towards just going with the Frigidaire to save money.......

Then this morning my mom, Molly, and I went to the "Sears Scratch and Dent" warehouse. As the name implies, this is where you can buy appliances and other things from Sears that customers returned because of cosmetic defects or that showed up at Sears with
cosmetic defects or sometimes even that are just discontinued. I was a bit skeptical about getting something from this place, but when I walked in the room and saw the number of appliances they had, I began to think differently... and sure enough, after spending only an hour there I walked out of there with all my appliances purchased and excited about the kitchen again!

Here's the run-down of what I chose:

Dishwasher - Fisher & Paykel Dish Drawer 603
It's hard for me to get excited about a dishwasher, but this one proved me wrong. It's basically two separate dishwashers on top of each other. Each drawer slides out and has stainless steel interior, is very quiet and the two drawers can be run independently to save energy/water and so you can put heavily soiled dishes in one and lightly soiled dishes in the other. Awesome.

(I'm getting it in black though)

Range - Kenmore Elite 36723
This was probably the best deal I got, snagging it up for 50% of what it normally sells for. It has convection, warming drawer, continuous grills, glass top, and a long burner on the left. It's what's called a slide-in range, which means it lays slightly over top of the counter top and there is no backsplash control panel area (the controls and display are on the front instead). Because of those two things it gives it a much more built-in, clean look. The reason it was in the scratch and dent warehouse was so minor too: the finish was chipped in a couple places on the vent cover, which is in the middle-back of the top surface, under the middle grill. I'm sure a replacement could be acquired for pretty cheap, but honestly it's so minor I don't know if I'll even try.
Fridge - Kenmore Elite 77249
This was exactly what I was looking for in a fridge: black non-textured finish, water dispenser, ice maker, bottom freeze drawer, and french fridge doors. This was another great deal, getting 40% off the retail price. This has the most damage of any of the things I got, with a dent on each side about 4 inches above the water dispenser, and a small one on the lower right edge of the freezer drawer. Molly astutely pointed out that magnets would cover the two top dents very easily, and the bottom one, really isn't very noticable.

Microwave - Kenmore Elite 80829
There's not so much that I was looking for in a microwave, but this has even more than that. It can cook with convection heating, microwave, or both and has an easy to clean stainless steel interior (I still don't understand how they do that... what happened to not being able to put metal in the microwave??). The convection option allows you to cook as if it was a stove and from what I read in this article, it works pretty well!

(I got it in black instead of the stainless though)

I need to get to bed, but a quick update on the rest of the place is that things are coming along nicely, with the drywall all in place and the siding going up very quickly. Looks like the big portions that I'm going to be doing (the painting and flooring) are going to begin next week, and completion is looking to be around the end of the month/early May (just in time for my b-day).