What a crazy weekend

It was a crazy weekend, as well as an expensive one.  But we picked up the last major things on our list for the kitchen.  In two weeks our kitchen will be 95% finished.  Notice I didn't say 100%.  That's because there are little things that we would like to do, but they can wait for a while until we get settled into our new kitchen.

I'm excited to say that our countertops will be delivered this Friday.  We added almost 8 extra feet of counter space just by rearranging the kitchen.  We will now have counters on all 4 walls of the kitchen and plenty of space to cook and entertain.
   

This is the color of the counters.  The previous owners installed these right after we looked at the house the first time (the house still had the original yellow counters at the open house).  Luckily we liked them and decided to keep them.  We also decided to try and get the new ones ordered as soon as possible just in case Formica ever decided to discontinue this color option.

They are laminate, but pretty nice.  They are etched and on the more expensive side for laminate.  We would like solid surface, but right now they are not in our budget and we don't want to deal with pulling the current counters out.  For now these will work nicely.

My mom liked them so much, that she put a similar color pattern in her new house.  Only her's have a copper flake in them (and are solid surface).

We also made the decision on tile and bought what we needed.  We found a glass mosaic that we liked at our local hardware store.  And the best part was it was on sale for a fantastic deal.  It was more the half the price of what we picked out at the tile store.  It's beautiful.  I'm glad we decided to look at what they had.  That will be delivered on Jan 20th.  I can't wait.  Can we start working on the backsplash the second the tile comes in?

We also finally bit the bullet and bought appliances.  We went into sears thinking we were going to buy the Frigidaire Gallery series, but left with Kenmore Elite.  They had a fantastic sale and because it's sears, all the Kenmore appliances were on sale.  We left spending more then what we wanted to, but ended up with appliances that were three times better then what we had picked out.

We went with the refrigerator pictured above, the Kenmore Elite french door fridge.  It was an overproduction item (the manufacturer made too many of them), so we got the fridge for almost half off.  Then they had their Friends and Family sale, so we got an additional 20% off of that price.  So the fridge was just a little bit more then what we planned on spending.

This fridge is smaller then the one we own now but is 3 cu ft larger on the inside.  I'm not going to know what to do with all that space.  Oh yeah, fill it with delicious foods.

Then we picked up a dishwasher as well.  It's a Kenmore, but not the Elite line.  This one was also a really good deal.  It was 35% off to begin with then with that extra 20% off, we couldn't pass it up.  We picked up a stainless steel dishwasher, with a stainless steel tub, for the same price as the entry level models with the plastic tub.  I'd say that was a fantastic deal.

We picked up a fridge and dishwasher for less then what the fridge was originally priced.  Yay, for saving money.  And the best part was our associate that worked with us.  He showed us numerous models and explained the differences in all of them.  He worked with us to stay in our price range and got us some extra little discounts (one delivery fee and one haul away fee for two appliances).  He also got us and extra 20% the price of the warranties.  And he told us when we were ready for the stove or a new washer and dryer to call him and he'd give us a heads up on the next sale.  I enjoyed working with him more then any other associate I've dealt with.  And we've been to a lot of stores looking at appliances.

I know we spent a little bit more then what we had originally said we were going to, but we also upgraded to higher end appliances.  And in the end we were not that far over our set limit.  And we have saved so much money on the rest of the kitchen that our budget is still intact. 

Now I can't wait for them to be delivered.  We'll have a dishwasher that cleans the dishes every time and does rattle all the cabinets while it's doing it.  And a fridge that holds more then we can imagine right now.  Fantastic.

The stove that's in there right now should be counting it's days.  We're waiting for our tax refund to pick up a stove.  For the first time ever in my life I will be using my tax refund to actually buy something instead of paying off debt or saving it.  But I guess I can do this just once.  Especially if a beautiful 5 burner gas stove with convection oven is the item I'm buying.  Swoon.