Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Kitchen Makeover - part 1

You gotta listen to this......................

remember this post? My parents were in the market for a new oven after theirs blew up on Turkey Day. I was at their house one day when mom called and told me that they had picked a new oven. She also informed me that the place they were purchasing the oven from was offering a deal "Buy 2 Get 2". So Buy 2 appliances and get 2 appliances. I immediately got curious about this, especially since our dishwasher has been acting up lately. Mom wasnt sure about the details of the deal. So after a few more phone calls, I finally learned that if you bought a refrigerator and cooking appliance (ie oven, cooktop) you get a dishwasher and microwave for "free". So i figured if we could go in on the deal with my parents, I mean they were already buying the oven so all we needed to buy was the fridge and we would get 2 for free. I was getting more and more excited, mom asked me to come up to the store and check out the appliances for myself. I loaded the girls up and headed on over there.

When I first saw them I could imagine them in our kitchen. I read the "fine print" of the B2G2 offer. Then the bomb was dropped on me. The worker told us that the deal ended the day before. He said he couldnt honor the B2G2 anymore. I was angry, the paperwork said the deal would be on for another WEEK! All I could think was false advertisement! So I told the man about the date on the paperwork, and in his very poor English he said that there was nothing he could do and I needed to take up my concerns with his boss, and he kindly gave us her number. My dad called her immediately. She explained the reason behind the misprint and told him that she would do all that she could to try and honor the advertisement. I took my dad inside to show him the paperwork I was reading with the dates of the offer, and they were gone. The worker (who was really getting on my nerves at this point!) had thrown them away!

We decided to just leave and I settled into the idea that we missed out on the deal. About an hour later, my dad hears back from the "boss lady". She explained that the misprint on the paperwork was because of the Frigidaire Rep. He sent out the advertisement with the wrong date, and instead of reprinting them, he just sent an email stating the correct dates for the offer. So the last day of the B2G2 deal was THE DAY BEFORE! We missed it by one day! So my dad, being the salesman he is encouraged her to contact her sales rep and asked for an extension of the deal since it was his mistake to begin with. She was more than happy to do so, and about 20 minutes later we got the call saying that if we bought the fridge in the next hour she could honor the deal. YIPPEE Skippy!

I woke Marcus up to tell him what was going on, actually I had already woken him up earlier to go and measure all current appliances, to make sure these would fit. And after measuring I found that they all would be a perfect fit!

So we paid for the appliances, and the worker, who was quickly becoming more irritated with me, started loading them up in my dads truck. We decided to take the dishwasher and microwave, and leave the fridge there to pick up a different day. As he was checking the receipt printout, he noticed the numbers didnt match up on the microwave I thought we had purchased (the one that he told us was included in the deal). When I asked to see the micro that was, in fact, part of the deal, I was led back to a completely different area and shown a micro that was 1/2 the size and did not have nearly as many options. Once again we complained! We had to get BACK on the phone with the boss lady, whom at this point just wanted to seal the deal, so she agreed to let us have the bigger microwave instead of the other one. YIPPEE Skippy again! So off we went with 2 of the appliances.


We got the 2 appliances home and they just sat there. In case you all don't know this time of year is the BUSIEST time for FedEx which means we basically don't get to see Marcus......EVER! So I got antsy, as I do when I want something done. So i decided to just do it myself. And here's how I did it......

Marcus and I got a date night at one of our favorite restaurants, Flemings. We went with a couple friend of ours Chris and Rachel. We met at their house for drinks and then loaded up and drove the 5 miles to the restaurant (what I wouldn't give to live CLOSE to civilization!). We had a marvelous time! We had a $50 GC that we purchased for $40 at Costco, and we had a $25 "dining credit". So we had $75 worth of food to eat before we had any out of pocket expense for the night. I was confident we would be able to keep our meal under or at least close to the $75 mark. But Chris and Rachel had a different idea. They immediately ordered a bottle of wine for the table and insisted on appetizers, actually TWO appetizers. I began to get a bit nervous, but decided to just enjoy the evening. We both decided to go with the surf and turf as the entree and each couple shared. We split three sides between the 4 of us and it was plenty of food. The bill totalled like $275 and Chris picked up the rest of our tab. So basically we got an fantastical meal and evening for 40 bucks.......cant beat that! So my mom babysat for us at our house while we were out, and she just spent the night. The next morning is when I got really antsy about the microwave. I decided to just start the installation process myself. I began unpacking said appliance and removing the old one. Then I realized I would need a few more hands (and muscles). Mom and i had the old microwave completely unattached, but we couldn't lift it enough to get it off of the mounting bracket. I quickly ran to wake up Marcus as mom held the micro in place, and he came out in his boxers to lift it out for us. He questioned what I was doing and then went back to bed. I finished prepping the rest of the area for the new, bigger micro, and when he really woke up he helped me install it. Basically he just did the heavy lifting. I did the measuring, drilling, figuring, planning, and basically everything else. Here is the finished product.....

and the inside, which is much bigger than the old one, it comes with a shelf, but it is recommended that you only put the shelf inside when you are using it

This post seems to be getting longer and longer, I will have to continue it another day........stay tuned

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