Getting lit

Contrary to what you may have been brought up to believe, it's what's on the outside that counts. At least when it comes to landscape lighting.

If you've been following this blog for any amount of time—and if you have, you might want to look into a Netflix subscription—you already know we went through a rather substantial remodel a couple years ago. If you'd care to refresh your memory about it, especially the parts where strangers marched through my house starting at sunrise, giant dumpsters blocked the street and the word "budget" lost all meaning, you can read up on it here, here and here.

While many great things came out of the remodel, like our new whisper-quiet Bosch dishwasher, a master bathroom that can accommodate (or is that a-commode-date?) more than one person at a time, about 50 sq. ft. more of living room and a bitchin' kitchen, one thing we unintentionally lost was our exterior lighting.

Since we were putting in a new electrical panel and circuit breakers, upping the amps (not that having circuits blow every time three appliances ran at the same time for 20 years wasn't fun) and rewiring the electrical, we also upgraded the outdoor lighting transformer. The one we had was over 20 years old, and the hamsters and hand crank that ran it were both getting worn out. So hello to a brand new, digital whammy-jammy transformer that immediately blew out the line to our existing exterior lights.

Even though we didn't let the fact we had no budget for many things during the process stop us, we literally had no budget left to fix the exterior lights. So for the past couple years, the only outside lights on the house have come from the inside. We do have plenty of overly sensitive sensor lights around, so if you come near the place they light up like Bret Kavanaugh at a frat party. But they're just a poor substitute for attractive, illuminating exterior light that increases the value of the house, says, "Hey, I see you out there." and makes the neighbors oooh and aaahhh at the place as they take their evening drives.

Right now I'm researching what seems like thousands of new fixtures on hundreds of web pages while our incredible electricians from the remodel are in standby mode. Hopefully I'll be able to flip the switch on the job soon.

I don't expect my house will look like the one in the top picture when it's done. But I'm hoping it'll at least look better than this one.

Nice rack

One of the great joys remodeling the kitchen is paying the thousands of dollars in bills that seem like they'll be coming in for years after I'm dead. No, wait, that's not how I wanted to start this.

One of the great joys of remodeling is I get to pick out new appliances. There we go. And one of my best choices was our brand spanking new Bosch dishwasher.

Just to give you a little background, because I know you were hoping I would, our dishwasher is what started the entire kitchen remodel project. I won't get into all the gory details, because I already did that here. Suffice it to say eleven months and $20K over budget later, it was the right choice.

The Bosch is the third dishwasher we've had. The first that came with the house was a Westinghouse with a black door that clashed with the cabinets and counters. It sounded like a 747 taking off when it was running. So we replaced it with a snow white Maytag dishwasher, that was much quieter, went with the kitchen decor (such as it was) and worked fine for years.

Then one day, the handle broke when we tried to open it. We called a repair guy, who told us we could spend the money to get a new handle/door on it, or we could just use a dinner knife to unlock it by wedging it in and pushing down. Since we already had the knife, we decided to save the money. Besides, it felt a little McGyver-y and it was fun. At the beginning.

Soon after, we were unloading it again and the top rack broke its railings, almost crashing all the glassware in it to the linoleum floor. We could've had a nice down payment on a new dishwasher for what it would've cost to fix it, so for years we adapted to holding up the top rack with one hand, after we opened the door with the knife, and loading it with the other.

The McGyver-y part was starting to wear off.

Fast forward to the remodel. Now keep in mind it'd been years since I'd been appliance shopping, so it was a whole new world of dishwasher technology for me. I'm standing in the vast showroom at Friedman's Appliances, and our salesman—ask for Johnny—shows me the Bosch. I believe the sound I heard in that moment was the angels singing.

First of all, the Bosch is whisper quiet. So quiet in fact, if it weren't for that little red light I'd never know it's on.

Next, the controls are on the top of the door instead of the front. So whether it's running or not, it's just a slab of uncluttered, shiny, stainless steel sitting there looking beautiful (a skill I happen to know a little something about).

While those features were important, the final one that sealed the deal was when Johnny (ask for Johnny) showed me the third rack. I didn't know whether to cry or faint with happiness. After years of trying to figure out how to put soft plastic lid tops and smaller items in a place they wouldn't melt or fall through to the bottom, this opened up a whole new world for me.

I just read the last couple sentences and I'm thinking the same thing you are about my getting a life. But I digress.

The third rack could've been part of my immensely popular and often read What Took So Long series of posts. But because of the impact it continues to have on me, I thought it needed a post of its own.

If you've followed me on here for any length of time—and if you have you really should pay more attention to what's going on in the world around you, because it's not pretty—then you know I'm somewhat of a dishwasher savant. I look at the pile of disorganized dirty dishes, and in my head I see them all placed perfectly in the dishwasher. I've never used the "there isn't anymore room" excuse. There's always enough room if you do it right.

Judgmental much?

The third rack makes my life easier. Ask anyone that knows me—I'm all about easy. While it brings me joy every time I open the door, there's now an entirely new strategy to employ when I'm loading the dishes. The third rack has a spray spinner attached to the bottom of it, which means the items in the second rack have to be low enough to clear it. It's dishwasher Tetris figuring it out.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I've spent enough time rambling on about this.

Don't even get me started on the front-loading, full-size, stacked washer and dryer. That's for another day.

Brain freeze

They look so nice don't they? Like big, chilly robots lined up just waiting to be filled with boxes of frozen food from Trader Joe's.

Our thirteen year old Frigidaire refrigerator is on its last legs (last rollers?). While it still keeps things cold, you can feel a nice chill standing in front of it because the seal on the door isn't nearly as tight as it used to be.

But then whose is?

There's also a handle missing, no doubt from years of the kids hanging from it. It's a lot noisier than it used to be (aren't we all). And because it's so old, it's whatever the opposite of energy efficient is. Whenever its motor kicks on, the lights dim throughout the house and we can actually hear the electric bill going up.

So this past weekend, since it was raining anyway, the family and I had a fun-filled afternoon walking around Howard's looking for a new fridge.

On the logo it says "Nobody Beats Howard's." I'm not sure if that means price. Or selection. Or service. Or just confusing the crap out of someone who hasn't had to think about it in years. If it means that last one, then it's definitely truth in advertising.

When we bought our current fridge thirteen years ago, it was around $800. Needless to say I was in for a little sticker shock. Apparently the cost of materials, design, new refrigerator technology and all those white plastic vegetable drawers has skyrocketed.

After opening and closing more doors and drawers than I could count, the one we zeroed in on came in at $2299 after the energy rebate. (I was going to make a joke about Doors & Drawers being a washed up country music group. But actually it's a company that makes, well, guess. Though I'm not sure they get much business with a website that looks like this).

But I digress.

I have to admit I was intrigued by the French Door model with the extra crisper drawer. Four handles, four things to open and four things to break for those of you keeping count.

The crisper drawer between the fridge on top and the freezer on the bottom doesn't actually give us any more room than the two drawers that do the same job in our fridge now.

But it looks way bitchin'. And it had a decal that said, "Fresh Food on a whole new level."

Copywriters.

And it was a Maytag. Which as you can see by the sticker in the upper right corner is made with "American Pride."

Howard's has been selling appliances for a very long time. In fact we bought our current fridge, washer, dryer and dishwasher there. They're local, knowledgeable and can usually deliver and install on the same day.

So far be it from me to tell them how to do their job. Obviously they know the best way to display refrigerators on the showroom floor.

Apparently, tons of blinding neon lights reflecting off a roomful of white and stainless steel refrigerators are an essential part of the purchase decision-making process.

We wound up not buying a fridge that day. Instead, we came home and spent some quality time with our failing fridge. We discussed how if you take an extra minute to press the door closed tight, it actually sealed okay. And that despite being down a handle, we really didn't have any trouble opening it. There was no getting around the fact it wastes a lot of electricity. But we own a Land Cruiser. Wasteful is something we're used to.

Then we looked at pictures of all the refrigerators we'd just seen, and spent some time talking about what would look best inside our house.

We decided it was the $2299.