Big Spenders

Today Steve and I purchased our oven/range and dishwasher. One of the guys working in our local Sears appliance department was a co-worker of mine when I worked there briefly ten years ago. He remembered me (at least vaguely) and helped us out with everything. One nice thing about salespeople that know you, and know that you used to work for the same company, is that they don't tend to pressure you for the "extras," which was nice.

Having spent our entire adult lives in places where things don't work quite right, we wanted our dishwasher and oven/range to be exactly what we wanted. So we splurged a little.

The dishwasher is a 24" Kenmore Elite. It has pretty good reviews everywhere we looked, but the thing that drew me to it most is that it's advertised as "virtually silent." Some reviews mentioned that the owners had to press their ears to the front of the machine to be sure it was, in fact, running. Our house is very small, and a noisy dishwasher would be a constant annoyance. So we're excited about that.

The oven/range is a 30" Whirlpool Double-Oven Freestanding Gas Range. It also has good reviews, and I was pushing for the double oven feature. It just makes sense to heat a smaller space, since Steve usually is cooking for just the two of us. Also, I thought it was neat that you can prepare two different dishes at two different temperatures at the same time without having to take up any more space than a standard oven/range. It also has streamlined grates that seem like they'll be easier to clean than the usual type. We'll see.

Thanks to signing up for a Sears card, we got 0% financing for 6 months, 15% off everything and free delivery. Seemed like a pretty decent deal. We're very excited, and I'm glad an old colleague of mine could get the commission. Our shiny new toys will be delivered next Friday.