Now for Appliances

My husband and I both cook and we like watching the cooking channel.  We knew that we wanted a big kitchen when we looked at houses.  We wanted a gas stove and a large refridgerator.  We spent time looking for exactly what we wanted, we went to a lot of places and looked at the higher end appliances.  We figured these would have to last a long time and wanted commercial grade, we did not realize how much they actually cost! One of the reasons our budget was low to find a house, is because we looked for a fixer upper.  We wanted a big house with good sized rooms...good bones, and older houses seem to be better made.  

Our house in Sachse was in a "Planned Community", it was a new subdivision when Crew bought the house.  He had the house when I met him.  We watched them build houses all around us, we saw what the construction workers did, the shoddy work, the second rate materials they used for the framing.  When they built the house behind us, we saw the pieced together materials with holes that they covered up with the siding, we saw the top floor collapse one night, because of the poor workmanship.  It was listed for over $300,000 dollars!  Even our house had issues, we had a problem with the air conditioner, it didn't work right, it never did.  I think after the first few years, we had the same exact thing happen 3 years in a row...it went out in the hottest time of Summer.  One time I kept hearing an electrical arcing sound coming from the outside unit, the wires to the fan had fallen and the fan had cut the plastic coating on the wires.  I turned it off and wrapped the wire with electrical tape and zip tied it out of the way.  I wondered if the repairmen did it on purpose, they tried to talk us into a new unit the last time they had come out.  I did not call them again.  

We also had a problem with a huge window at the front of the house, it leaked, the front room was freezing.  I called the home warranty people on a really regular basis for awhile.  The windows were covered, several had lost the seal and they replaced them.  Funny thing was, the front window kept leaking...I kept calling.  They sent a higher up out to work on the window.  They insulated the divider bars thinking it was leaking from condensation, he sprayed the window to check for leaks and water gushed in.  I pulled the blinds up and out of the way and noticed there was a gap at the top and the window looked like it was leaning out!  They had to completely reseat the window, it quit leaking.        That thing they did insulating the middle bar, they did that on all of the double windows...it is something they should have done when they installed the windows.  Do you know that they normally use particle board when they create window sills?  Because of the condensation, I had already ripped out the window sills on each of the double windows and replaced them with primed and painted real wood.  I had the wood for that one too and made them use it.

Oh back to appliances.  We couldn't afford the commercial gourmet appliances we picked out, so I went to Sears and got Kenmore Elite stainless steel.  We have liquid propane, so we had to have the range modified.  At least Sears has a Hometown store in the nearest town and we can get repairs if needed down the line.  We went for a vent a-hood instead of an over the stove microwave.  We would have had to rip out the cabinet above the stove.  We found out there was no venting, we ended up having to run it outside through the wall...that too was a major project.  We got a dishwasher too, I will explain more later on that, it is a whole other story.