Why is it when you spend money on something, something else breaks?

I think it is a universal truth that when you save up money to spend on something major, right after the money is out of your hands something else major breaks.  That was certainly the case this weekend. 

As you may remember from my previous posts, I've just had the floors redone in my kitchen.  Here's the shot of my beautiful floor again just because I love seeing it so much.

Well, this past Saturday morning I woke up and decided to have a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  Don't judge me for not cooking...I was all by myself.  I put the cereal in the bowl, added some sugar and then as I tried to pour the milk it plopped out in chunky disgusting blobs.  YUCK!!!  I was so mad!  I had gotten the milk from Walmart and vowed to never buy milk from there again since it was still a week before the sell by date.  I dumped the cereal out and just had some toast.  Later that night, I decided to make some ice cubes.  My fridge was still pretty empty because I purposefully hadn't shopped in order to get rid of most of the food to make the fridge easier to move out of the way for the floor refinishing.  The freezer part was still completely empty, so I filled up my ice trays and plopped them in the freezer.  The next morning I woke up wanting a big glass of ice water, so I giddily grabbed an ice tray and gave it a twist.  To my shock and disbelief the water hadn't frozen after 14 hours in the freezer.  Now it was starting to occur to me that my fridge was dying.  CRAP!!!  I put a thermometer in the refrigerator and it was 57 degrees, which now explained the chunky milk the day before.  The compressor was running and it was cool, but not cold.  I put all of the settings on the coldest setting and the fridge only got as cold as 51 degrees.  At least the water in the freezer began to freeze, but not well.  The fridge came with the house so it is at least 9 years old, so there really is no point in calling a repairperson to fix it.  Time to buy a new fridge.

Online I went trying to see who was having a sale on appliances.  Fortunately it was Sunday and the start of a new sales week and nearly everyone was beginning their Columbus Day sales.  All of the stores were offering 10%-25% off, free delivery, etc.  Honestly, the timing was pretty good all things considered.  I mean how often is one's refrigerator nearly completely empty when it breaks AND it happens to break at the beginning of an appliance sale? 

So after getting some advice from my dad, my constant consultant on all things, I headed off to the main stores in town:  Lowes, Home Depot and HH Gregg.  They all had pretty good deals but I was discouraged because I'd been eyeing the super nice Samsung freezer on the bottom refrigerators for the longest time.  I loved everything about them but the price.  At $2K-3K+ for a fridge it was out of my price range on a good day and even more so since I had just spent a good chunk of money to refinish my floors.  My cash was a bit more used up than I would have liked, and I simply refused to spend more than I can afford and put an obscene amount on my credit card.  Plus, I just have a really hard time spending that much money on a refrigerator in all honesty.  I did know that I wanted stainless steel because I have slowly been replacing everything in the kitchen with stainless and had even gotten the brushed stainless accessories (pot rack, microwave, cabinet knobs).  I could have probably gotten away with black, but it would have never truly made me happy, and it would always be unmatched in my eyes.  However, it was an option if necessary.  I'd much rather have unmatched appliances than be broke trying to pay off an insane amount of debt. 

After hitting the three stores in the morning, I was hungry so I came home to forage for some lunch (since it looked like I was going to be too poor to eat out at a restaurant for awhile...LOL!!).  While I was home, I decided to give DB a call and tell him about the top choices I had found so far and get some of his input since he too would have to live with whatever I ended up buying.  Not only does he give great advice, but he's always super supportive of anything I do.  He really is awesome.  So we discussed the pros and cons of the top two in the range that I could afford and still kinda liked.  I know he could tell that I was disappointed that I couldn't get the fridge I actually wanted.  He said that since this is such a big purchase and I would be living with it for several years, that it is probably a good idea to splurge a little bit (not to the point of bankruptcy of course) and actually get something that made me happy.  He then reminded me that that not only do we have those 3 main stores in the area, but within a 30 minute drive we have multiple locations of those same stores as well (2 Home Depots and 3 Lowes stores), so he suggested visiting all of them just to see if they might happen to have a fridge I really like on a clearance isle.  WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT???  I always try to by off of the clearance isle when I can anyway, but it just never occurred to me to visit the duplicate stores too.  It was brilliant!! 

Now I was off to the duplicate stores.  I was surprised to see that the prices for the same items were actually different in the different locations.  Now, the difference isn't much, but it was still surprising to me.  I did find one at the second Lowes that I liked a little better.  Then...it happened.  A salesman walked up to me and asked if he could help.  I asked him if they happened to have any clearance refrigerators.  I had seen several marked down, but nothing marked "clearance".  He said that they oddly keep them in the back of the store and he thought he remembered seeing one back there.  So I followed him around the store, and I saw it.  They had the beautiful big stainless steel Samsung refrigerator on clearance.  It had been returned and had some scratches and a slight ding.  It didn't have the water and ice dispenser in the door, but who cares?  It had an icemaker so I was satisfied.  I started measuring and the dimensions would just barely fit in my door.  I was SO HAPPY!!! 

Isn't it beautiful? 

Look at all of the room!!!

 

 I don't care about the small ding in the freezer door.  Heck, I'll probably end up shutting the freezer door with my foot a couple of times so a small ding is nothing compared to what I'll be doing to it.  The best part is the price.  The price of the fridge went from the original of $2,300 to $900 after the markdown and a few other discounts I was eligible for.  I saved enough to be able to afford the 4 year extended warrantee.  Normally, I view those extended warrantee plans as being a waste of money, but since this is a clearance item I felt it was necessary.  So in the next 4 years if it craps out not only will Lowes repair it for free, but they will reimburse me $250 for any lost food too.  So I'm happy all the way around because I got exactly what I wanted at a great price.   I would have never gotten it had I not listened to my DB's great advice to go to the different stores and look for some scratch and dent.  He's so smart!!

FINALLY...beautiful kitchen floors

Ok, so I last left off having done demo to my kitchen floors.  By the time I was finished it looked like this.

 

Since this was way outside of my DIY skills, the process began of collecting estimates from contractors.  Most were good.  A few didn't bother calling me back which told me that I absolutely didn't want to hire them anyway.  One actually basically ridiculed me for getting more than one estimate.  He actually said, "Most people just call me and don't bother calling anyone else".  He was also substantially more expensive than all of my other estimates, but he was the highest rated on Angie's List.  I'm thinking that a. his ego was getting the best of him, and b. he made the price so high because he just didn't want to mess with all of the challenges of this floor.  I found two contractors that I really liked and it was a difficult decision.  I ended up picking the one I did because when he came in he immediately not only told me what kind of wood my floor was made from, but also informed me that I had TWO different types of wood on my floor.  None of the other contractors mentioned that.  Apparently the half at the bottom of the above pic is red oak, but the rest (from the big hole up) is all pine.  He scraped tested areas of the floor to check the condition and he had a pretty reasonable plan of action.  He confirmed that this would be a challenge and it wouldn't look perfect, but it would have character.  I happen to LOVE character, so that was fine.  I mean, isn't the main reason on having an old house is because of the character??  What was amazing too is that he was actually the lowest bid.  YAY!!

 

So, Monday morning he arrived right on time and got to work.  We had lots of little meetings as work progressed because that hole and the concrete needed to be removed and repaired.  He came up with an idea of an inlay which would not only fix the problem but provide a pretty transition between the two different types of wood.  I thought it was a great idea.  When I saw it after he created it, I really loved it. 

 

The more I heard him work, the more thankful I was that I hired a professional.  There was absolutely no way I could have been able to do this and have it look even remotely decent.  This is where my brilliant father's economic lessons really resonated with me.  He always told me that it is great to be cheap (meaning frugal), but always remember that there is a big difference between being cheap and being "stupid cheap".  Stupid cheap will always cost you more in the long run.  This was definitely one of those cases where a DIY attempt on my part would have been stupid cheap.  It is important to know one's limits. 

 

SO...after two good days of sanding and various repair and two more days devoted to poly coating I now have a beautiful new floor...with character!

It turned out so much more beautiful than I even dared hope it would, AND I was actually $200 under budget for this project!  YAY!!!!   I really wish I had done this sooner, but I think if I hadn't lived with the icky white carpet for so long I wouldn't appreciate this as much as I do.  Every evening during the process I would turn on the light in the kitchen and just stare at how beautiful the floor looks.  In fact, a week later I am still doing it.  It was so hard waiting the 4 days for the poly to cure so I could move my furniture back.  It looks SO great now.  My kitchen is becoming a beautiful blend of rustic and modern which I totally love.

My DB hasn't seen it yet.  He's still on his business trip and I purposefully didn't send him any pictures or post anything specific on Facebook.  That's been the hardest part for me is keeping the surprise.  I'm TERRIBLE at keeping surprises!!!  I've done well with this one.  He comes home tonight and I just can't wait to see his reaction. 

Now I want to rip up ALL of the carpet in the house!  I'm trying to be patient and save up.  I'm definitely going to call this same contractor to do the rest of the house.  I probably could handle the DIY on the rest since I shouldn't have holes and old walls, but Joe did such a FABULOUS job that I think it is worth it for me to spend the money to have him do it.  It helps out a local businessman who is actually really good and a joy to work with, and also frees me up from the mess and work of doing it myself.  I can tinker elsewhere.