Appliances, Anyone?

Well, it seems our crew ran out of drywall over the weekend, so as of yesterday afternoon, we were still waiting on the walls in the garage to be completed. The entire house (upstairs and downstairs) as well as the garage ceiling have all been drywalled -- it's literally just the garage walls that need to be finished up. We'll have our weekly call with our PM tomorrow to get a status update on what's going on this week. I do already know one exciting thing that's happening this week: our PM is ordering our appliances!!! I'm so excited! I guess I haven't shared with you guys the drama of selecting our appliances, so let me remedy that now.

So when we were initially making our selections for the house, we were given a few "tiers" of appliance packages to choose from. Basically it started out with GE basic appliances in black ($), then GE Profile in black ($$), then GE Profile in stainless ($$$), then one more higher-priced GE Profile appliance package in stainless ($$$$). I was happy with the lowest level of GE Profile in stainless, except... for the range.

I didn't want a basic, run-of-the-mill stove found in every suburban home across America. I wanted a stove that made a statement. Something that said the person who uses this range is serious about cooking. I knew I wanted a gas range -- something I've never had the opportunity of owning before, but couldn't imagine NOT putting in my dream house -- because you have so much more control over the heat than with an electric stovetop. And through my diligent research, I learned that I wanted to stay with an electric oven because gas ovens are very inconsistent in maintaining a specific temperature, which is crucial for baking. So this meant only one thing: a dual-fuel range.

I absolutely ADORED the GE Cafe' Dual-Fuel Range. It's sleek, modern and just plain gorgeous. I loved everything about it, even something as simple as the bottom warming drawer. But, since it wasn't an option in one of the "standard" packages they offered, we had to pay a small change fee to have them research the cost of swapping out our range for the one I wanted.

A few days later, we had our answer. The additional cost would be $$$ (I have no clue/can't remember) BUT... the GE Cafe' range requires a GE Cafe' over-the-range microwave (not a GE Profile microwave I had planned to use). This meant forking over the additional $$$ (whatever it was) to pay for a microwave upgrade we didn't really want. Essentially GE designed it this way, at first I thought just to force people to make unnecessary upgrades, but now I realize it's for the best. If you're a Type A like me, you'll quickly understand. The GE Cafe' logo is a red circle. The GE Profile one is not. Can you imagine what it would look like to have two different branded appliances one on top of the other? I'm sure there are more technical, safety-minded reasons GE used to make this call, but regardless, I'm happy that I was forced into selecting a GE Cafe' microwave if for no other reason than it'll match my range. ;)

So, here's our new microwave:

And her beautiful, matching, to-die-for range:

I'm so pleased with our selections! The dishwasher will still be a GE Profile stainless model (which I honestly couldn't care less about) and our refrigerator is actually just a basic GE Energy Star side-by-side stainless model. Again, all I care about is that beautiful range and I. Cannot. Wait. to see her in my new kitchen!

WOOT!