Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The moral of the story is...

...measure twice and cut once. OK, that moral applies only in my quilting class, but a similar thing should apply when buying appliances for a new/old house. When my father remodeled the kitchen in the new/old house several years ago, he placed the cabinets a little lower than normal so that my mother could reach the top shelf. I knew this, once upon a time. My mother knew this, once upon a time. Neither one of us remembered this when I bought an over the range microwave at an incredible discount (reg. price $509 - I got it for $124!!) I did think through everything I could imagine before I bought it, calling Brad, calling my mom, who eventually came to see it before I bought it. It was stainless steel, and I had no other appliances that matched. However, we needed to buy a new fridge, so I checked out all the fridges to make sure that my bargain microwave wasn't going to require me to spend an extra $100-$200 on a stainless steel fridge.
Anyway, I bought the microwave and brought it to my new/old home. This is the part of the story when my mom walked into her former kitchen and remembered the deal about the cabinets being lower than normal. So, I can't put a microwave over my oven with the current cabinet in place, so we're tossing ideas around.
Part 2 in the story... I will spare you the details surrounding the purchase of my new fridge and all the trouble that Brad went through getting it to the house (who wants to pay $60 for delivery??). Remember the title of the post... the moral of the story is, measure, measure, measure!!! Of course, I had called my father before I bought the fridge and had him measure their fridge, since it was the same one we had when we lived there before. I really did think ahead... sort of. The fridge I wanted was a few inches taller, but they have a few inches to spare under their cabinet above the fridge and so do we. No problem, right? Ah yes, the part about the cabinets being lower... Can I scream now?
So, we have a fridge in our house with the doors taken off (because it wouldn't fit through the door) and I'm guessing that we will have to remove the beautiful cabinet above the fridge space because, well, I didn't actually MEASURE IT! Either that or we can return the fridge, which got a bit of a scratch on one side during the trip home. To make matters worse, Brad discovered when he got it home that it has a big dent in the top corner, the one that we will see every time we enter the kitchen. We DID NOT make that dent. So, I'm back to Sears... again... to discuss the dent. They really won't like me after this. Maybe they don't like me already... oh well, Lowe's LOVES us! (new dishwasher, dehumidifier and lawnmower) Maybe some day I'll record the rest of the story about the purchasing of the fridge, but not now. I need to soak in the tub and take my wonderful sleeping pill and go to SLEEP! Good night!

11 comments:

jenny marvin mealy said...

Oh-hope that the bubbles helped to soak away the frustrations of the day.

Keetha Broyles said...

Is this a scene from a movie?????

Glad you could at least find enough humor in it to make a funny blog entry about it.

Toevs said...

I just think moving &/or remodeling is not fun! And I really hate it when a bargain ends up causing an even bigger headache. We have had PLENTY of those incidents! Hope things start moving along more smoothly.

Jaena said...

Since your dad was the ones to hang the cabinets lower for your mom, don't you think he should come and "fix" them for his daughter?

Keetha Broyles said...

Oh Jaena, I LIKE the way you think!!!!

Terhune Family said...

Jaena, I totally agree, but I won't be asking Dad to do anything right about now. He can barely walk, at the moment, due to severe back/hip pain and has been out of school all week. They're hoping that physical therapy will fix it, along with some hefty medication.

Amy said...

Funny you should post about measuring since we discussed meters today in math. I'm a metric dunce, so I had to use the nemonic device--Karen Has a Dad who Makes Donuts on Christmas Morning--to figure out how long to make our meter-length measuring string since every measuring device I have is in cm. (Thank you, Mrs. Marcuson!) Then poor Sydney 'estimated' our dry-erase board to be 3 m long and our long wall to be 2 m. Ah, the joys of the ruler--measuring tape--whatever. At least we weren't preparing to install new appliances. :)

Terhune Family said...

Amy, I learned King Henry Died Monday Drinking Chocolate Milk. I'll have to remember yours to tell to my classes. :) I applaud you for teaching metric!!!

Amy said...

I like yours, too, and I'll try to remember it. I've used the other since I was 13, though, and it's served me well. And don't clap too enthusiastically for my teaching the metric system...it's the first measuring unit in our Singapore math (so obviously metric would be taught first). Maybe I'll actually learn it this time. At least there's the hope...

Semple said...

I saw your link on Holly's blog!
Congratulations on the new/old house!!
We need to catch up...:-)

Heather

Robin said...

Ouch! Laugh or cry. Laugh or cry. Well, maybe both!

Perhaps your kitchen will get more of a renovation than you had planned!

I hope there aren't any more surprises!