Sunday, May 21, 2006

Upgrading our life

Last night I made a list of things I want for the house. New things, nice things. Major upgrades.
My list was as follows:

Single basin kitchen sink
Swan-neck type kitchen faucet (the kind you can easily fit large pots under)
New bathroom sinks (currently our bathroom sinks are made of plastic and they're horrible)
New bathroom sink faucets
New bathroom tub and shower faucets

Armed with my list, Bob and I took the kids to Home Depot (aka Manlyworld) this morning to investigate and purchase.

We left there with a brand new single basin extra deep stainless steel kitchen sink, a perfect swan-neck faucet for said sink and new tub/shower hardware for the "public" bathroom and new shower hardware for the master bathroom. Since it's a lot of new stuff, Bob wanted to wait on the revamp of the bathroom sinks. And I can't blame him, I've just heaped a whole lot of side work onto his plate.

But to be fair, these changes were absolutely necessary. Bob's been using a SCREWDRIVER to turn on and off the hot water in his shower for about three months now. I've been getting burned or frozen in the master shower since we moved into the house because the knobs are hard to turn when soaking wet. Also the hot water valve will turn about 14 times while the cold water knob goes about a half turn then sticks. That sucks.

I'm totally stoked for the new kitchen sink most of all! I'll finally be able to fit my large saute pans and wok and crockpots in the sink and properly wash them without getting sprayed or dousing the counter in dirty dishwater!
Hurray!!

Oh, and PS, still no word from the propane company. We're BBQing again tonight. Last night we had BBQ chicken breasts with microwaved instant rice and microwaved Italian style green beans. Tonight, if the thawing process is cooperative, it's tri-tip steaks, microwaved baked potates and gosh, I don't know, microwaved green beans. Again?? **SIGH**
I shouldn't complain too much. When we first moved to Arizona, we didn't even HAVE a microwave. But then we upgraded our life.

Next purchase on the list: Bathroom sinks and faucets - which I estimate will be MAYBE another $100. We're getting a pedastal sink for the "public" bathroom and ridding ourselves of the horrid particle board cabinet that currently takes up half the room.
After that, it's on to landscaping and a new laminate floor for the family room. Goodbye stained carpet!
Who needs savings anyway??? :)

5 comments:

Chris said...

Oooh, upgrades. Fun. We have a general idea of what we want to do, but we never talk or do anything about it. We have other things to get in order first I guess.

Jason said...

If you ever sell the house, the upgrades will be worth more than the money if it had been left in your savings, so don't worry about it. I hope Bob is a handy guy!

Jessica said...

Right now we have the double basin, and like Amy, I initially thought it was great. But it's too shallow and either side is too small to fit big pots and saute pans, so everything gets washed at an angle with water spraying everywhere.
Not only that, but the drain WITHOUT the garbage disposal is constantly getting backed up with bits of food and there's not a damn thing you can do about it besides pour a gallon of Drano down there.

Jason: That is what I told Bob, that if and when we sell the house, we're going to get all of that money back and then some. I mean, for these things we just bought it was less than $500. Just the new kitchen sink alone will make it worth our while.
He's also very handy. He's a carpenter by trade, right now he's working with a company that does facade work (stones on fireplaces, that sort of thing) he's also done metal roofing, insulation, metal building construction. Not only that, but his brother is a plumber. So we're all good to go. :)

Chris: We're like that with our yard, there's a lot of it, it's configured oddly and we don't know what to do with it, how to define the spaces. We have to find a place for a kiddie play area, we've been talking about doing that since we moved in here two summers ago.

Chris said...

Our yard is a disaster. We had the front done professionally (and it looks great) but I'm in a constant fight with weeds. It is very annoying. I'm not much for yardwork as I have bad allergies, so it's always a struggle.

Jessica said...

We live in a Ponderosa forest, and we have lots of trees, lots of manzanita plants, it's hard to carve out usable space. Though that didn't stop Bob from putting in horseshoe pits. He made it work.
Also, we have no grass, none. Our driveway is cinders, it makes for a fun time with the constant vacuuming inside.