an ode to the handy men in my life...

On the 7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a washing and drying machine.

We're under construction over here again. 

I wish we I meant we were renovating, but we take it one little project at a time.  Remember way back two years ago when I was thrilled to receive my parents washer and dryer? Over the last year, the dryer has worked it's way up to an almost 2 hour dry time.  About a month ago, I'd had enough, so we started researching.  I never knew how much I would hate appliance shopping.  It was much easier to choose a car!  My number one requirement? That my king size down comforter fit, so I don't have to take it to my mother's to wash anymore.  I don't need steam, or most of the options they have now.  Give me a few temperature choices and some nice loud beeping when they're done and I'm good.  I have a bit of anxiety over my final choice, because it seems every brand and model has a nice long list of complaints against it, but I'm trying not to think about that too much!

We ended up with a cherry red, yes you heard me right, pair of LG front loaders that we got a sweet deal on Thanksgiving weekend.  (read: Weren't willing to pay an extra $600 for white).  And since I never like to make things too simple for anyone, I thought "Hey!  If we're replacing them, lets go ahead and fix the plumbing so they are actually side by side instead of perpendicular." And, "Hey!  I have a gallon of our bedroom paint left over, so if we're moving stuff, why not paint in there?"

My hallway downstairs currently looks like this (Ok, not actually like this.  Cheddar is currently curled up in a ball at the foot of my bed):

I forgot to take a picture before we moved the old washer/dryer out this weekend, but here's the before and after of my paint job yesterday (Thanks to Harland who took a break and lent a paint brush and my mom who gave me her afternoon to help me finish.  Grace of course who is a handy-girl herself had to get her hands on the roller and paintbrush for a bit too):

Note the nice platform.  Why pay $400 for pedestals when I can dial 1-800-DAD, spend $30 at Home Depot and have him and Harland whip this beauty out in a Saturday morning?  I LOVE that there are handy men in my life.  Seriously.  I also have to give Harland a lot of credit for his plumbing solution.  We are able to have our set side by side because of that PVC piping work he did all the way to where our set tub is.    Let me rephrase: I love having SMART handy men in my life!  Between Harland, my father and my brothers, if there's a problem, they'll figure out a solution.  And there's no gunk involved! (Sorry, bit of a family joke with the gunk comment). It's a bit tough to see the paint on the walls in the picture, but it looks much better.

Here's a view you can see the after a bit better:

We wound up installing them ourselves, since the delivery guys wouldn't put them on the platform for us.  Obviously I took the brunt of the heavy lifting and Harland just sort of guided them into place (j/k Harley!)...

I just washed my king size comforter and I am one happy camper.