A Laundry Room Christmas Story
/It all started last Wednesday night. LB and I have both been swamped at work and so we were sitting down to dinner, watching an episode of the The Profit, when all of a sudden I heard a great fright. The sound was coming from our laundry room and we both knew what it was: the washing machine. The motor just stopped working... the clothes (and the world) stopped spinning. And we knew. We just knew that it was time to bite the bullet and do the thing we did not want to do yet. Gulp.
We had to buy a new washer and dryer.
The food got scarfed, the Blazers game came on and I started researching like a Treana/crazy person. LB got the following email from me the next day:
"I vote that we do this to the back wall: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/252764597810855613/ I already have the stencil and we can pick out a color.
Then we build these shelves above the front loaders, including the "bench" style shelf: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/252764597811896212/
Remove the doors and leave it open like they have it. I love it. We can also trim out the doorway like they have. We can borrow Adam’s saw any time. I think we could get this done this weekend and then have delivery scheduled for when we get back from Portland or this weekend/Sunday if you are really anxious to get this done.
I have decided that the unit we want is the Whirlpool Duet Steam: the size does not matter to me (4.3 cubic feet v. 4.5; potato, patato). Here are the price breakdowns.
At Costco the units below are $1999 (appears to be before tax, so add another $100), but include the pedestals ($200-250 each). The warranty on those is only for two years as opposed to at Lowe’s where it is for 3 years for the price shown below. The Costco ones automatically include the hoses and things needed for installation.
We would use the Lowe’s card and take an additional 5% off for a total of $1723. We will pay it down with most of the ER fund of $800 and then the $500 I have going to home improvement with your last check of the month. We’d be able to make up the $400 and change by the end of January for sure and possibly sooner. I also already had plans to beef up the ER Fund for our budget in the next two months. I don’t necessarily care about the pedestals. As you can see in the second pin above with the shelves, having them on the ground really isn’t a huge deal. Your thoughts?"
LB is the world's greatest hubby sometimes and this is one instance where he totally was. He called me and said that I should see if Home Depot had the same units and what the price was. They did and their price for everything and delivered and same warranty was $2,213.87 BEFORE TAX (compared to Lowe's price of $1,723 after the 5% discount).
Cue, husband brilliantness: THE HOME DEPOT PRICE MATCH. If you can't really read what it says below allow me to fill in the blanks: you find a lower price on an identical item, we will match it and beat it by 10%. It says that online purchases are subject to price match only so I called our local home depot to figure out what I needed to do to get the beat it by 10% due to Lowe's crazy low price.
The lovely man that I spoke with said that I should just bring in any documentation that details Lowe's prices. He said that as long as it didn't say "Online Only" and that it appeared that Lowe's had it in stock in Denver, that we could get the beat it by 10% deal. Thus, on a cold Thursday night in December, LB and I headed to Home Depot in search of a deal. (This post is turning into some sort of totally weird Christmas poem thing. Just go with it.)
When we arrived we walked straight to the appliance section and met with the manager. He put in a quick call to Lowe's and honored the price match + 10% off up to $100. We got the washer and dryer for $679 each!!! We also found out that if we got a 5 year warranty (normally $100 for each appliance) instead of a 3 year warranty (normally $80 for each appliance) we would save 10% on those.
For the extra $20 we just did the 5 year warranty. All in all, we came out at $1,700 for the washer, dryer, all the parts, install, delivery, take-away broken ones, and a 5 year warranty. I think that we are going to love them despite the circumstances under which we had to buy them. The only thing that was a bummer was that they can't deliver until January 3rd given our travel and such. Secretly, though, I am glad that it is going to take that long so that I can paint and spruce up the laundry room like I want! :)
Brace yourselves for paint colors, shelving, and stencils galore! Oh my!
