House remodeling - 1963 architecture.

We have spent many hours thinking, pondering and wishing for the opportunity to remodel our current home. It is the only home on our street that is a two bedroom home. We took the opportunity a few years back to downsize from a four bedroom with few regrets. The added bonus of going from large home to smaller was the yard size. In our other home, we had very little yard. This house came with a large yard, so large that if we do decide to add a third bedroom, it will still leave lots of yard for outdoor fun.

We are seriously adding the room. But the fun part is the fact that there isn't a foundation. We have a crawl space under the house for plumbing repairs and other fun stuff. That's where we are hesitant to move forward with the remodel. However, Thanksgiving brought another reason to be thankful.

Yes. Another reason! Wednesday evening, well pretty much throughout the day we replaced the dishwasher. Yes, amongst the other things happening in the kitchen, Tuesday was the day we discovered the dead dishwasher. It had been installed by the former owner (who should never be allowed to purchase items from a do it yourself hardware store) without much knowledge of electrical or plumbing standards. This is a picture of how he chose to get electricity to the dishwasher!
Yeah. He just drilled a hole through the tile and fed the wires through to take up a plug on the counter side. Arrgh! In 1963 there wasn't a lot of things to plug in, coffeepot, mixer on occasion so you didn't need a lot of plugs. By taking this one out for the dishwasher, it has made using a food processor, a crockpot, an electric knife, an ice cream maker and many other appliances kind of difficult.

Sigh. But alas here is the newly installed dishwasher. I had wanted to wait to do the complete kitchen remodel (which will begin in January 2009) before installing a new dishwasher. We are relocating it to a different wall and taking out a bank of cabinets. But, for some reason the rest of the family didn't want to wait for a new dishwasher until then. It is a pretty basic model, but it does have the sanitize option. I like that option. As you can see, the stainless steel front is going to fun to keep finger mark free.

All in all, I am glad we did have the money available to just go out and buy a new dishwasher. Thankfulness abounds here!