<p>kathiep – same here. Our 18-year old refrigerator, washing machine and A/C system need to be replaced this year. The A/C system was VERY expensive, and it went out right after we paid 2 tuition bills. I still refer to replacing our A/C system as “sending our A/C system to college” since it was almost like paying a third tuition! :eek:</p>
<p>Toilet. Replaced the screws that hold the tank to the base. Everything looks good. DD just flushed toilet and apparently whatever is supposed to stop the water from filling up the tank didn’t stop and we just had water FLOWING out of where the handle is (not the usual flapper thing that you just have to jiggle) Mopped it up and will call plumber in morning. I am not complaining. If she hadn’t been taking a bath and had just gone downstairs or back to bed, we never would have known and the water would have been coming through the ceiling of the dining room. </p>
<p>I feel like we just dodged a major disaster.</p>
<p>Well these are the things we remember. If everything went perfectly there would be nothing to laugh about later.</p>
<p>About 4 days prior to Thanksgiving I purchased a frozen turkey, a big one. Inconvenient to put in refrigerator so I stored it in our milk box on the back deck. It was fairly cold so I wasn’t worried about food posioning. The Tuesday before T-day I decided I should bring it in and let it thaw in the refrigerator, on my way into the house I opened the lid of the milk box thinking I would come back out and get it once I put all my bundles down inside the house. Completely forgot the turkey until around 11pm that night when hubby came home and told me something really nasty was out on the back porch. Of course, then I remembered the turkey. We figured some wild animal must have smelled it once the milk box was open and started eating it. I wasn’t happy about it, but wasn’t about to go look and went back to sleep. My DH (stands for dumb, in this case) thought he was doing me a favor and picked up the half eaten turkey and put it in the kitchen sink which I found upon awakening the next morning. yuck, yuck, yuck. DH (dear in this reference) spent many hours going to a fresh farm turkey place and picking up a fully cooked turkey to save out thanksgiving dinner. </p>
<p>If you can’t get a replacement light put in before Thursday, just leave the old one in place til you have the time. A broken light looks better than a bunch of wires. Manybe noone will even know it is broken if you use lots of candles. Good luck.</p>
<p>our central air died in the middle of D’s graduation party on probably one of the hottest days of that June,housefull of people.
we brought out every fan we had and luckily the sun had moved off shining directly on the back patio so …
My house is 11 years old.Only original things left are the oven and microwave.Refrig,dishwasher,washer and dryer have all been replaced.just waiting for the hot water tank to blow up.Central air is living on replacement parts and a service contract…</p>
<p>Will be having 18 people over for Thanksgiving. Convection oven/microwave went yesterday. Repairman coming today. Odds are he will remove the oven for repair and leave us with a gaping hole in the over/under double oven unit. Salmon, turkey, sweet potatoes, cornbread, stuffing, apple and pumpkin pies and only one oven. Yikes!</p>
<p>Our house is 12 yrs old and all these posts are getting me nervous. All our appliances are original to the house. The only things we have had to replace are the water softener and one of the water heaters. My H did tell me yesterday the other water heater is ready to be replaced. I would hate to have to start replacing kitchen appliances. They all still look modern and new. Heck we are still on our original BBQ.
We did replace the washer but the one we had was not new when we built this house.
Bunsen- we are waiting to hear what you bought?</p>
<p>Regarding stopping up disposal with potato peelings…This happened to my mom a couple of times when I was a kid. As a result, she trained me to always peel into a plastic grocery bag. Just roll it down a turn or two, place it in the sink and peel away, right into the sink. Most of the peels wind up in the bag, loose ones can be easily pick up. I take 'em out to the compost pile, but they could just as easily be dropped into the trash can…works very well. The best part is no clogs in the disposal…</p>
<p>Believe me, my disposal hasn’t seen a vegetable peel since!</p>
<p>Crossing fingers here that my stove, microwave, and dishwasher all go out on Thanksgiving morning!!! Maybe then my husband will get in gear with updating our kitchen 
All of our appliances are original to the house ~ 16 years. I hate them, hate them, hate them. Also, ugly light fixture can go; it did start on fire once. I should have let it burn… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Ran into a friend at the market this afternoon. She said she got a notice from the the electric company that she will be without power all day on Wed while they work on a transformer. Must have been a male who scheduled that work order.</p>
<p>^^^That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.</p>
<p>Well, maybe not the stupidest, but it’s pretty darn stupid.</p>
<p>An update on my light fixture search. I went to all brick-and-mortar lighting stores in my area hoping that at least one will have something that would fit the space and the specs. Too bad I wasted 4 hours of my life!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Lighting Universe showroom was quieter than a cemetery. The lonely salesperson was surfing something (or playing something) on his computer and was clearly too busy to help me. The showroom had signs that it was relocating somewhere, but there was no clear indication where. The floor samples that they had on sale due to their moving were either too big or too unimpressive. I asked the salesperson whether I’d have more luck finding something on their website, and he was really relieved that I did not need his assistance. Off to another store I went.</p></li>
<li><p>A LampsPlus store I went to next was closing (lost their lease), and the store was selling their existing inventory at large discounts, but alas, they had nothing that would even remotely look good in my kitchen.</p></li>
<li><p>Seattle Ligting had some decent stuff, but not a single person was available to help the hordes of wandering customers. I decided that I would not waste my time in that store.</p></li>
<li><p>Lowe’s was a total disappointment (a few letters in their neon sign have burned out, and it read “Lowe’s - a home improvement war”) - their lamps collection looked like a discount lighting shop in a third world country. I turned around and went to the mall to look at what Pottery Barn and the like could offer.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So after I pretty much exhausted my local options, I decided to shop for the fixture online. I narrowed my serach down to a Tech Lighting or a WAC 3-point canopy and pendants fixture. It took me a few minutes to figure out that I was not willing to spend $1K on a kitchen table light :eek: Then, I remembered that Tech Lighting had a lower end brand called Tiella (sort of like Toyota’s Scion). Bingo - Lighting Universe had it in stock, but even if I ordered it tonight, the package with my new fixture will not reach my frot porch until next week 
So H has two choices - either reassemble the dead light transformer and plug the non-functional light into the gaping hole in the fixture or put up a $20 lamp from HD and then replace it with the Tiella Monopoint canopy/pendants.</p>
<p>Now a question to CCers - should I get all pendants of the same shape and color or should I get three pendants of different shapes/colors?</p>
<p>Bumping this up in hopes that someone will be able to give me their opinion. :)</p>
<p>
Threes - yes, I remember the year that our car AC, house AC, and fridge all died within a week or two. It was August. We now refer to the 8th wedding anniversary as the freon anniversary.</p>
<p>the garbage disposal is really only meant to be used for small amounts of leftovers from your plate. It is not mean for carrot/potato peels or as my mother found out, shrimp shells.</p>
<p>My BF the plumber loves it when people put stupid things in their garbage disposal :-)</p>
<p>BunsenBurner,</p>
<p>Wow, the Tiella pendant lights on their website are beautiful. On whether to do same shape/color: Are you hanging 3 pendant lights together? Are you planning on reselling your home in the next few years? For resale I would think 3 of the same shape and color hanging together would appeal to more buyers, and I think would also be beautiful. You really couldn’t go wrong going that way. If you’re going to be in the house for the long haul, I say get whatever makes you happy and enjoy!</p>
<p>If my wish comes true and all my appliances break and my light fixture starts on fire again, I am definitely coming back to this website for the Tiella pendant lights. Gorgeous!</p>
<p>Thank you, momlove! Please don’t look at the WAC and Tech Lighting pendants, you’ll be even more impressed (and out of many more $$).</p>
<p>Our current fixture has three bell-shaped pendants of the same color attached to a round ceiling canopy, and I was planning on doing something very similar, but H wants to have something more festive and “jazzy”. The good thing about these lighting systems is that the glass shades on the pendants can be easily replaced (I’m thinking when I have some extra $$, I’ll order some really cool pendants from a local glassblower). So I guess I will go a with round canopy with three different pendants, since we are not planning on selling any time soon, but you never know…</p>
<p>In a slightly different vein, when the power went out in the Midwest back in whatever year that was, all three of our cars were at or near empty. No gas stations with power to fill them up.</p>
<p>The cottage is 2.5 hours north and had power. We had no way to get there.</p>
<p>The night before leaving for vacation, when the dryer bit the dust with a load inside and another in the washer. Went flying to the laundromat, where the woman tried to keep me from coming in by telling me it was too late at night. Not until I convinced her that I only needed the dryer, not the washers, did she let me in.</p>
<p>Two different microwaves have died at our house the week before Thanksgiving (in past years). Luckily, DH cannot survive without that appliance, so both times he went right out and bought a new one.</p>