Appliances, Appliances - Direct, no less

We did manage to bring all of our appliances with us from Texas, but there are a couple of snags which have required us to purchase some new stuff. First of all, one of my favorite things in our Dallas kitchen was the ice machine. It is a separate appliance that made little 3/4 inch squares of ice. Silly, but I loved it, so it came with us. The Dallas one is 18 inches wide and all of the ones manufactured now are 15 inches. Turns out when we were trying to piece together the various components of the kitchen into a totally different configuration, we did not have an 18 inch space for the ice machine - only 15 inches. Since our existing one is now 13 years old and hasn't been used in 5 years, we decided to purchase a new one - no problem. GE makes one with the same little squares, so that's great.

Wait a minute - they cost WHAT???? That's right - $2,000. Holy %&%@)%&* batman. That's outrageous. Well, we looked everywhere, thinking that price had to be wrong (maybe we do need reading glasses after all), but no. That's it. Other brands were the same or more (think Sub Zero - HA). Well, an appliance repairman we know also looked around for us and told us that Appliance Direct had one. Appliance Direct??? That's odd. We thought they carried low-to-mid-range items. Those of you from Florida are certainly familiar with the TV commercials (and I have to admit, I turn the volume off when they come on) in which they shout, "if you didn't buy direct, you paid too much!!!" Well, it turns out, that tag line is correct. We purchased the same GE ice maker that retailed for $2,000 for (only) $800.

Turns out they also had the exact same stove we are going to purchase (since I reluctantly decided that it would be nuts to get that beautiful $10,000 Wolf one I really want). We got the stove for half of the retail price. Sweet!

Never in a million years would we have thought that Appliance Direct would carry the items we wanted. It doesn't make me want to shout like the "crazy Korean" (which is what they call him), but almost.