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Lemme Upgrade Ya

FRIDAY! YAY.  Are you singing Beyonce in your head right now? Lemme upgrade ya, lemme lemme upgrade ya, upgrade ya! I sang that song and dance around our kitchen quite a bit this week! Remember when our dishwasher looked like THIS?!!?

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Ding dong the ugly dishwasher is dead!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Fun story- the week before Thanksgiving we woke up to a flood in our bathroom.  Yup, our main sewer line backed up into our house.  Pretty disgusting.  Poor Scott spent hours and hours cleaning it up. He was gracious enough to excuse me from the task.  Part of that sewer water went into the dishwasher, which luckily was empty at the time.  We called a plumber and he came out, fixed the issue and $220 later I was telling Scott there was NO WAY I was EVER putting our dishes in that dishwasher again.  Slash also I have hated that dumpy thing since the day we moved in. It never really worked- it was more handwashing, then allowing the dishwasher to attempt to sanitize after. So we set out for Best Buy and told them we wanted the nicest, most effective dishwasher in our price range possible.  This is one area where we were willing to spend a little more after not having a good dishwasher for so long. So, several, several hundred dollars later, here we are!

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Isn’t she beautiful?!?! This thing is magical I tell you. We went with this LG model right here.  It’s so freaking cool-and it ACTUALLY WASHES DISHES REALLY GOOD!!!!! Someone from Best Buy came out to install it the day before Thanksgiving, and we have been loving and petting it ever since. Look how fancy the bottom of it is! Like a computer!

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My favorite two features (besides that it works really, really well) are- 1) it sings when it’s done with a load! Yes, it is so quiet that it has to play this happy little song when it’s over.  2) it has a THIRD RACK.  What?!?? Yes, this little guy can hold thin flat dishes, silverware and serving ware. Also the racks move up and down to accommodate different heights.  So that’s pretty boss.

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Okay, one more look at the precious.

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BUT WAIT- THERE’S MORE. 🙂

So, look at this flash back from last Christmas Eve, where my dad was hooking up our prep sink plumbing and Scott and I were about to have a WORKING KITCHEN for the first time in 5 months!!!!! Look at the joy:

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At the time we didn’t care about cabinet doors or appliances or anything! We had a remodel to pay for and just wanted a kitchen, darn it! But over the last year I’ve become increasingly irritated with our cooktop.  Here it is after a scrub down. It refuses to be clean. 🙁

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Our stovetop actually has gas hookups and we designed our island with the end goal of being able to get a gas cooktop eventually. We’ve been keeping an eye out for a good deal for the last year and guess what!!? WE FOUND ONE YAY.

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We found this Whirlpool floor model for 60% off at Home Depot and I snatched it up before even looking at the measurements.  With one hand on the stovetop guarding it, and the other quickly scanning online reviews I was overjoyed to learn that this was the BEST STOVETOP EVER.  But as my husband gently reminded me, we needed to make sure it fit in our countertop.  Oh yeah, that whole thing.  So (very, very, very reluctantly) we left and ran home to measure. YAY! It was a perfect fit. We ran back to Home Depot, I was ready to tackle anyone even looking at our stovetop, but there she sat, untouched. Boom.

We bought it, and took it home and began the installation that night. And ran into a huge problem.  Apparently the measurements didn’t account for these screws that stuck out about 1/4 inch on all side, which doesn’t sound like a big deal but it was a big enough deal that it didn’t fit.

We tried everything.  We pushed with all our might. We tried to take the screws off (bad idea). We googled.  And finally, when it came down to it, I told Scott to get me the drill with the concrete bit.

Oh yes, I was serious. I was not taking this cooktop back. So I measured where the screws hit the concrete and used the drill to make little notches into it. I was so fierce and determined. Part of me was so afraid to break our countertops. But it had to be tried. After awhile my arms got super tired and Scott took a turn.

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Here’s the part where I tell you how much I LOVE our DIY concrete countertops.  We were able to drill into them no problem like so:

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AND IT FIT!!!!!! I won’t even tell ya’ll what word I screamed when it went in, but it was a quote from Jesse on Breaking Bad.  Yeahhhh!!! I felt like such a B.A.!

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So, this is what the kitchen looks like now. I am so thrilled. Lemme lemme upgrade ya!!!

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 Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! If you want to be inspired and check out some adorable Christmas crafts (include two from yours truly), check out the blog link up at Setting For Four today! Link is here.

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Tania Griffis is an accomplished writer, blogger, and interior designer with a Journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma. She started her popular blog, Run to Radiance, in 2011, demonstrating her design expertise through the personal remodeling of six houses to millions of readers across the globe.

Tania also owns The Creative Wheelhouse, a respected ghostwriting agency for bloggers, further showcasing her talent for creating engaging and informative content.

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5 Comments

  1. Oh my gosh, I am cracking up over this post. Mainly because I can totally see myself guarding an appliance while reading reviews. And my logical husband bringing up pesky things like measurements. At 60‰ off, who needs measurements?!?

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