We’ve touched upon some of the ugly aspect of parts of our home when we first purchased it, but we haven’t explored the very ugliest part yet–our kitchen.

The floor was bargain basement linoleum, the counter was pink with gold sparkles and gold stars, (really)
And the appliances were almost as bad. The lovely brown stove next to a harvest gold refrigerator that coordinated beautifully with the pink sink that featured a rusty, broken corner. OMG! We’re talking gouge-out-your-eyes ugly.

We actually had enough self control to wait a few weeks before doing any appliance shopping, believe it or not. We browsed a couple of times, but were turned off by the aggressive salespeople for a while. At one national department store we were descended upon by so many salespeople it was like mosquitoes at a campout. At a nationwide chain-type electronics store that also sells appliances, we were greeted by a pimply high-school kid who knew less about appliances than we did, but he sure was eager to sell us an extended warranty!

Eventually, we ended up at our locally owned, high-end (read- expensive) appliance store, Idler’s. We nearly ran screaming from the store when we caught sight of the $10,000 oven/ cooktop combos in the front windows, but as we looked around, we realized that their prices on the stuff in our price range really were pretty fair.

Back in the left rear corner we noticed a hallway that a couple of salesperson/customer groups had slipped into and then sneaked out of. I asked our salesman what they were hiding back there. Turns out it was their damaged items area. Now we’re talking!

We looked and looked, and actually found some things that were interesting and workable. For instance, there was a nice big, side-by-side refrigerator in black. The freezer door had a good sized dent in it, however. We asked about a replacement panel but the manufacturer only sold complete doors for about $700.00 each, making it more expensive than an undamaged refrigerator.

My ever-thinking spouse had a solution though, "What if we glued a cork bulletin board over the dent, you know, for our boy’s drawings and things?" What a great idea! Cha-ching! $1450.00 refrigerator with a full warranty- $700.00! Done deal.

The next thing we found was the dishwasher. Almost top of the line, black, with every feature imaginable, but there was a tiny scratch in the plastic controls console and a small white smudge
on the bottom corner. I could live with the tiny scratch, you really had to look hard to see it, and I knew the smudge would polish off. Cha-ching! $850.00 dishwasher with a full warranty- $300.00! Done deal.

Next was the stove. We looked and looked, but we couldn’t find anything in the super- secret damaged- goods back room that suited our needs. We really needed a freestanding stove, not a cooktop and separate oven. Black and/or stainless, with a solid grill on top, not four individual grills, and a convection oven. With the help of our knowledgeable, and decidedly unpushy salesman, we found just the one.

Everything we asked for, in stainless and black. $1500.00. Hyperventilate. We’d bought actual working cars for that amount.

Certainly not a deal like the blemished room, so I asked about a discount. At first he said that he really couldn’t mark it down at all, it was a brand new model, blaah blaah, so we pressured him for awhile until finally he agreed to talk to the boss.

Returning with a smile, he says "The boss says it’s cool if I knock off $200.00. I told him you guys were buying a lot of stuff and that you were really nice." Very small cha-ching. $1500.00 stove, $1300.00. But a cha-ching nonetheless.

All in all, a great shopping experience. Our salesman had been selling appliances for 9 years and he knew everything about them. He never pressured us at all, offered extended warranties but recommended that we not buy it for the stove because he said that, "nothing ever fails on that one and their parts are cheap anyway."

So while you’re window shopping at your local appliance store, don’t forget to check out the blemished goods section. You might get lucky and score like we did–there’s nothing like a great deal to stretch those home improvement dollars.