Adventures in Home Ownership: Appliances

When we moved into our house, we didn't buy any new appliances.

Well, that's not true. We needed a washer and dryer, and we bought those at the local scratch-and-dent store. We didn't buy any kitchen appliances. We were still using the microwave from my college roommate, the old refrigerator taken out of our friend's new house, and the old stove that came with our house. This was fine with us- everything worked well enough to get by, and we were thankful that we didn't need to buy anything.

Two years, later, sometime this summer, we noticed the rubber around the door of our fridge was condensing and dripping onto our wood floors. The food seemed to be kept cold enough- I was mostly worried about the small puddle we'd find every couple days under the fridge would eventually damage the floors. A Refrigerator Fund was started, and by November we had replaced the fridge.

I love cooking, and the previous owners of our house did too, so the stove was well used. Also, like the fridge, it was almost as old as Josh & I. One burner didn't really heat up, there was no preheat light, no window in the oven door, no light inside the oven... The stove was perfectly functional, but as I started listing its flaws, I wondered if we would be justified in replacing it. We didn't need any immediate term life insurance quotes- It wasn't going to burn down the house or anything, but somewhere around 23 years old, I start to wonder if a valid case can be made for replacement. My parents must have noticed its flaws too, and offered for our only Christmas gift this year to be money toward a new stove. We decided to jump at the chance, and keep an eye out for good deals around Black Friday. We ended up finding one that got good reviews for a steal, and the old stove was booted out.

Because it was still a mostly-usable stove, I put the description of it, flaws and all, on craigslist to see if there were any takers. While doing that, I also discovered the instruction booklet it came with, complete with vintage cartoons. Which is the whole point of this post:




If I knew the stove talked, I might not have gotten rid of it!