A couple of weeks ago Garrett and I wandered through Home Depot. While we were supposed to be browsing paints colors, we naturally let our attention wander on over to the appliance section. Though we’re incredibly happy with the stainless steel appliances in the home, we aren’t too terribly keen on the side by side style fridge, thus our sights landed in that department. Now, this is where we made our mistake…we went into Home Depot on Memorial Day weekend…Sales galore! And what more could we ask for than a beautiful, stainless steel, French door style fridge? One with front access to the drinks stored in the door. Cherry on top? It was on sale for a mere 2/3 its original price! So of course, we could not pass it up… I mean, could you?! We now own a brand new refrigerator!

The delivery day for this glorious new food storage piece of technology arrived. With Garrett at work for the day, it was up to me to be home and receive it. So, naturally, it did not exactly go according to plan! The delivery guys were due to arrive between 7:00am and 11:00am with a call to me 30 minutes prior to arrival, yet that call never came. Here I am, just laying in bed all cozy and snuggled up to my fur babies when I hear a vehicle door shut. I peeked through the blinds and saw the delivery truck, so I rushed to change and brush my teeth before granting them access to the house. Off to a great start, huh? Guiding the first guy to the kitchen, I explained that I didn’t have a missed call, despite his assurance that he did call 30 minutes ago, so I hadn’t emptied the current fridge yet and would need to move my car so that the old one could get into the garage. He said that was fine and proceeded to go back outside to help the other guy unload the new refrigerator from the truck while I emptied the old one quickly and ran out to move my car. He came back in and pulled the current fridge out only to turn and say “now let me tell you what the problem is.” My heart sank…According to the Home Depot policy, the installers cannot install a refrigerator if there is no water shut off valve located behind the fridge, or at the very least under the sink within 6 feet of the fridge. I discovered quickly that our shut off valve was not located in either location, but was in the basement. Perhaps he could just install the new fridge without water hook up, and we’d just deal with that issue later? Of course not. To add salt to the wound, he also pointed out that the copper pipe was leaking at the connection point to the fridge, so he couldn’t unhook it. I was informed that if I were to have them install this fridge, I would have to contact a handyman or plumber and have them come out to fix the copper pipe leak AND install a shut off valve. Yeah…no thanks. I’ll just sit here and look longingly at the new refrigerator now acting as décor in the middle of the kitchen.

With the delivery men gone, I promptly contacted both Garrett and my dad, informing them of the circumstances while quite annoyed at the current situation I was now faced with. My dad assured me that we should be able to hook up the new fridge on our own but he would be able to help if we needed it, so I went downstairs to hunt down the valve. Some back and forth with my dad brought me back down to Earth and calmed me down, though I’m sure he got a good laugh at my freaking out and perhaps even got a good workout rolling his eyes…Each day I am more and more thankful for his help! Right, back to the valve hunt. Of course, the valve had to be located in the quadrant of the basement that didn’t have a working light! Remind me to get light bulbs…Thankfully Garrett and my dad had grabbed a ladder in a previous Home Depot run back when the door was being installed, so I snagged that and climbed up to turn off the valve before heading back upstairs.

I approached the fridge with a pitcher and pushed it against the water trigger on the door, filling up the pitcher once. Twice. Thrice. The fourth time is where I drew the line! Clearly that wasn’t the right valve…The kitchen sink still worked though, so I honestly am still not sure what that valve was to. Climbing the ladder once again I turned on the flashlight on my phone and squinted into the dark behind all of the pipes and such in the ceiling before finally spotting the tiny knob wayyyyyyy in the back. It was the right one though! Hurray! Now I just had to wait for Garrett to return home.

Garrett arrived home a couple of days later and put on his handyman hat right away. We pulled out the old fridge and I showed him where the leak was, then we were off to Home Depot. I swear, I should just set up Direct Deposit with them…These trips are becoming an almost daily occurrence! We located a copper pipe cutter and a new part to connect the pipe to the fridge, then returned home. After a bunch of rotations of the cutter, Garrett managed to get the pipe all set up and hooked up to the new fridge, and with no leaks!

So we went from having a new refrigerator in the middle of the kitchen to having both to having just the old one as décor, at least until the Home Depot people could get back out to move it to the garage for us! I had contacted them prior to this whole endeavor to request that they come back out, hook up the new fridge (without water), and move the old fridge to the garage as a fail safe. There was just no way we were going to move that fridge out the front door, down the steps, and around to the garage on our own (it wouldn’t fit around the corner from the dining room and through the garage door)! I may climb counters but I certainly wouldn’t be much help moving a big fridge…So back to the waiting game!

Finally, today, two men from Home Depot arrived prepped and ready to move the old fridge. This time, it was quick and easy since we did the installation part ourselves…Maybe one day I’ll be able to take on a project and have it go smoothly! Ha.