Dishwasher Naïveté

Hope everyone had a wonderful long holiday weekend.  We finally had some cooler weather and it was so nice to be able to be outside.  And of course worked on home projects.  Most of which are not ready to unveiled yet…except for one.

Since moving in, this appliance has been a major source of frustration.

Not only was it ugly  with it’s cream bisque color, it did a terrible job of getting dishes cleaned.  No matter what detergent we used (believe me we tried them all) and using the heavy wash all the time, things still came out dirty. 

Since we remodeled the kitchen, the appliances have been on the to-do list and we had the last straw with it this weekend.  So we decided to upgrade.

We thought we would install it ourselves…..and by ourselves I mean Derek would install it and I would watch.  And in case you were wondering we went with a Kitchenaid.

Naively we thought that it would be no big deal.  Just slide the old one out, rehook up the new one and slide it back in.  Cake.

It did not exactly work out that way.

First issue, one of the bolts on the little feet was stripped and would not move.  After trying multiple solutions, googling extensively and calling people more knowledgeable than us….we were brought to this.

Nothing like taking a sawzall to a brand new appliance that just cost over $1000.  That was not anxiety provoking.

After we he solved the foot problem.  We encountered more problems.  Most of them centered around the new dishwasher being slightly bigger than the old one and the way the wood floor was installed underneath.  Enter a chisel and prybar.  Neither of those tools were on the install directions either. 

Sorry I don’t have pictures of those…by that point we were past the “this is fun and let’s document for the blog” mentality.   It was more the “this is the stupidest idea ever and our new dishwasher is not going to fit and hopefully they won’t notice we had to use a sawzall when we have to return it mentality”

We did learn that the hardwoods in the kitchen were not original to the house.  There is ugly baby blue linoleum under there.  So even though I am not fan of the honey oak color of the wood, I now have a new found appreciation for them.

We finally got it done a little after midnight.  But it we did not turn it on.  Because if it happened to spew water everywhere I think Derek may have taken the sawzall to the front if it.

The good news was when we woke up with clearer heads and turned it on it worked beautifully.  Whew. And I happen to like how it looks too.

It blends in so much better with the cabinets and really completes the kitchen.  Just don’t look at the cream fridge or stove.

So we ended the holiday weekend with doing lots of dishes and marveling how clean they are coming out no matter how dirty they are going in.  And it is super quiet too.  And the pain of the install makes me appreciate it even more.  Well me at least, I am not sure if Derek is that stage yet.  It might some more clean dishes to accomplish that.