Cooking with propane (Day 155 of 273)

After countless hours of internet research, showroom visits, cooking demos, and endless blogging, Nancy—aka Kitchen Connosisseur Extraordinaire—ordered our appliance package on Sunday. We had dropped Tom off at the airport and went into Seattle to finish this little detail.

Over the years, we'd been to all the major appliance dealers in the Seattle area. Now, we're not talking Kenmore or GE here, but a little higher up the chef's food chain. Wolf and Viking were vying for her attention, but I'd hear occasional mention of Blue Star, Electrolux, DCS, and Fisher Paykel at times. Let me tell you, this girl should qualify for a Masters degree in PA (professional appliances). Now its time to pay for her graduate work.

We'd had estimates on our various packages from Albert Lee, Nielsons, CrossRoads, and many others in the Seattle area. What broke the log jam was a visit to the Seattle Home Show in February. All the big dogs were there, but few were dealing. Go figure—worst economy in 75 years, people out of work, and home construction/sales in the toilet. You think you could get a $100 off a several thousand dollar appliance from Wolf, Sub Zero, or Viking. Nope, these manufacturers have entered into the little shell game known as protected MSRP (manufacturers suggested retail price). Surely, some dealer would cut us a deal—nope. If someone in town starts cutting prices on the protected "upper" appliance lines, the distributors will cut them off (much akin to losing your ticket on the Gravy Train).

Anyway, we talked to a single-store company known as Fredericks Appliance Center in Redmond, which is best known as the home of Bill Gates little company. They've got an unassuming store front, but lots of good products. Their rent is low and they don't advertise much, so they reportedly have a lower overhead than the big dogs. Well deal they did. They protected the prices on Nancy's beloved 36" Wolf rangetop and 30" double ovens, but cut the fat off the Kitchen Aid french-door refrigerator, Best hood and blower, Bosch dishwasher, and Whirlpool Duet Sport washer and dryer. In addition, we qualified for a $300 discount on the Wolf appliances (a rare factory incentive), got a $100 gift certificate from the store (which we used right then and there), and they threw in a $150 microwave (for the pantry) and a $1000(?) full-size wine refrigerator (Haier, a Chinese brand, probably cost $300 in bulk). Nevertheless, before the rebates and freebies they had beat the big dogs by a pile of $$. So we got out the plastic and made the deal happen. They'll hold the appliances until the end of July, deliver the package to PT for $125 (RT = 150 miles and 2 ferry rides), and start the warranties at the time we occupy the home (a little know secret in the industry).

So after years of research and countless notes, quotes and dotes, we've got our appliances ordered. Next up is the kitchen cabinets, which will come from the Kitchen and Bath Store (Shelly Little) in Port Townsend. She needs all the kitchen appliance specs to lay out the cabinets in CAD, so now she has them and we've made a deposit, which officially starts the process. We need the cabinets in mid July and they take 5-6 weeks to build, so we've got a couple month buffer which I'm sure will evaporate like sweat off a chili-pickers back.