2/12/2008

My appliances hate me

I'm starting to get concerned that they're staging a revolt. Or maybe they feel that they're overworked and underpaid. Either way, I'd prefer a nice sit-down conversation instead of this passive resistance. Can't we just talk about this like rational adults?

Probably not. Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of a load of dirty sheets and towels, my washing machine broke. Granted, it's about 20 years old and spent several months sitting outside, so it's a little rusty and abused, so it was probably time for it to go. Still, I'd been hoping to get a few more months out of it. Like maybe until tax returns got here? Nah, that would be too easy.

So we spent last night looking at shiny new HE washers at Sears and Best Buy. We can't afford a dryer right now, plus we want to move the gas hook-up so we can stack them and drastically increase the space in our back porch/laundry/mudroom. The gas line currently runs along the outside of the porch (classy, huh?), so we need to wait until it warms up so we can properly move it under the porch, then insulate it. This might involve pulling up the floor back there (we have no idea how to access the crawlspace), so this is a spring project.

Then this morning, my toaster oven broke. Not a huge deal, but I use that little guy for everything from toast to heating leftovers. The top heating element no longer heats, and to compensate, the bottom elements go on full blast, scorching whatever you're trying to cook. It just bummed me out a bit.

And the furnace... Last year, we had a problem with one of the burner heads not igniting, causing the furnace to shut down before the cycle really got started. This caused the furnace to reset itself and go on standby for 3 hours before trying again. Needless to say, this resulted in a cold house! The nice furnace guy came out, cleaned it up, and charged us an arm and a leg. It's happening again this year. Not to the same extent, but I've had to reset the breaker 3 times in the past 6 weeks.

I'm just feeling very discouraged about the house and how much everything costs. As we've started to look at bathroom fixtures, I'm amazed at just how much they cost. Is it just me, or is $1200 for a bathtub ridiculous? $500 for a sink, $500 for faucets for both... Can you guess who's going to be scouring ebay, the ReStore and craigslist?

1 comment:

modernemama said...

We did 3 bathroom renovations last year. I got a great $99 faucet for one from overstock.com. I also got a Grohe at $$$ and a Kohler for $$$+ for the other two rooms . The $99 one works just as well as the others and looks as good, too.