Saturday morning of a holiday weekend. I don't take a lot of weekends off, so this one is special. I only wish that the house closing could have been before Memorial Day weekend. Think of all the things that I could have gotten done with 3 days off. Anyway, that was not the way it worked out.
So, Jose decided to go with friends to Culpepper VA for a carnival, so I thought I would check out Sears and see what the prices there are like for some of the items that will need to be purchased. So today was to look at grills, patio furniture, washer / dryers, LDC tv's.
I have a vision for the patio. It is to include a nice grill area. I purchased a couple of books a few weeks back about outdoor kitchens and how to build a patio. I got a lot of ideas from them.
I have been interested in the outdoor kitchen concept, but realize that this year it will not be possible to do everything, so I just want a nice grill. I spoke to Bill, the contractor who installs my retail kitchen's and who also cooks out a lot, and he has made the point for LP gas instead of natural gas. It appears that Natural gas will be about $350.00 to $400.0 to get plumbed, plus the grill will end up costing more. With the cost of an LP tank at around $50.00 and refills for around $20.00, it will take a lot of gas before I could justify the cost of the added natural gas cost. So, at least I want the tank to be hidden from view.
AS far as washers and dryers, Jose is pushing for the Steam concept. I spent a lot of time reviewing on line the differences and I agree that the Steam dryer is the way to go. In laundry fees alone, the additional cost will pay for itself in just a year or so, not to mention the fact that I won't need to run out and pick up laundry. I do not like to iron, so steam seems the way to go. Not sure about the washer at this point.
For patio furniture, I want a table that can seat 4 to 6 people and a conversation area with a fire pit. It would also be nice to have a raised bar area near the grill. At this point, I don't care if it is padded seats or separate seat cushions, wood or metal. I just know that I don't have an unlimited budget, but if I am going to enjoy the house this summer, I will need these things. They do not have to be top of the line to get started, but I don't want them to break down in a year either.
So my trip to Sears was beautiful. The sun was shining and it was not to hot. I opened the sun roof and windows and drove to Landmark mall. I thought I might go to IKEA afterwords. I stopped by the washer and dryer section first to look. The salesperson, Tony was very helpful.
I asked about LG and Whirlpool. He gave me his opinions backed up by what appeared to be knowledge about his products. He did not like the hinge on the LG items, but the washer is rated the #1 in consumer reports. He lead me to Kenmore and then to the Whirlpool. He showed both the top of the line and then next step down. I left thinking that the Kenmore Steam dryer with a matching regular washer would be the way to go, on pedestals. To put side by side on the floor, on pedestals or to stack. This is the question for another day.
From there I stopped by the LCD tv area. Sears seems to have good prices on TVs also. I believe the sales person to be Bernie, but I will need to find his card and make sure. Sony XBR's are priced well, but about the same as other places. Some items are on sale, others are not. What size do I go with. 52" or 46" or even smaller. The room is not large, but the 52" looks really nice. That would be my preference, but I may drop down in size due to price. I want 1080p and 120 megahertz, that I know. Bernie recommended the Samsung. New model and less price, but he did say that the Sony XBR has a great sound system built in.
Now, off to look at patio furniture and grills. I was impressed with the amount of patio furniture that Sears had. Prices seemed ok. Not as high as some places, but higher than some fairly nice stuff at World Market. As I was walking towards the grills, I noticed one of the outdoor kitchen grills. It did not have a price on it, but it was similar to one I saw at Home Goods that was about $2,000.00. The only difference is the case. It is brown to match a table set with stainless steel doors and grill. Granite insert tops. I asked about the price. The person was very helpful and went to look up the price. She came back with a shocking price of $299.00 for the grill section. This is a stainless steel, 4 burner with a side burner and rotisserie unit. I was surprised. The 2 side cabinets were $600.00 for the set. It even comes with a custom cover. This was hard to walk away from, so I purchased it with the in home warranty. This was a major decision, but I think it was a good one. I have been looking for weeks now and I believe it to be the best deal and with some work on the patio, it can be the first part of the outdoor kitchen concept. It may not all happen this year, but we will see.
I felt that I should leave and go home now, so I did. Walking on the concrete did make me tired and I was not feeling up to par at the beginning of the day.
I basically spent the rest of the day planning the patio on 2020.
2 comments:
David,
in your washer dryer, if you don't want the pedestals then get wall refrigerator cabinets and put a lamiante counter on them and build up your own base, then you can raise it as high as you want, I have done this several times for Customers who are still too tall for the pedestal!!! Also over by Borders in Springfield there is a store called Bar b ques galore and they have quite a good selection of grills and thats all they do so they may be able to help you with grill specific questions we got our charcoal grill from them and it is fantastic! I am so happy for you I can't wait to see it all!!!!!!
Jane,
Thanks. Sorry for the delay in response. I lost my user name / password and just found it. Not sure if I can bring this up to date or not. By the way, I stacked the washer and dryer, but you know that from being at the house blessing.
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