Home Improvement Shopping

We spent nearly 3 hours at Home Depot this evening!!! We thought it was gonna be a nice quick in and out trip grab the couple of things that we needed and be done - OF COURSE NOT!

We are very much do-it-yourself-ers around here and we often have several projects going on at once. ~~~ Of course I should probably clarify right here that "WE" refers to me coming up with what I want done in the house and CJ helps me to come up with the final plan and then he does 90% of the work and I help 10% of the time, but am really just trying to not drive him crazy. Although I am handy with tools and am willing to help, I am not a person who can visualize an outcome if it is not drawn out in front of me and I am a bit of a control freak by nature so I either need to be told exactly what to do or be the one planning every detail and delegating. CJ and I do not work together for long periods of time because there would be bloodshed for sure! So although I would be more than willing to do more than 10% he doesn't really want me to and if I did more someone would be injured!

We also never have a ton of extra money to get one area done all at once and we try to not use credit unless we absolutely have to ~ so we do bits and pieces. For instance last year we put laminated wood flooring in our kitchen and dining room, got a new front door and replaced a leaking window. The year before we installed storm windows to cut the oil costs, installed a dishwasher and replaced a cabinet with a three drawer unit. So you see we very randomly do things here and there depending on the funds and the need.

Here is where my rant comes in ~ I don't understand why it is that every time we go somewhere like this what we are looking for is either out of stock, discontinued or is now "Special Order"? We had to wait forever to find someone to help us, then we find that all they have is white cabinets - everything other than white is special order. WHAT!!! So I ask to speak to someone else because I just can't understand this - seriously I cannot get my brain to comprehend no options but WHITE! Oh but wait - the little lady who just came around the corner says we have a "few" natural maple options left hiding on the top shelves. THANK THE GODS! So we have been in the store for almost an hour and a half now and have been shown some cabinets, but now we are looking for the doors and again ONLY WHITE!!! I swear I felt like my head was going to explode. We again needed to find someone and where told "Oh yes we have them but we are going to have to get the machine over to get them down for you." Are you serious! So we sit and wait - another 4o minutes. Luckily we got blocked into the end of the aisle that had the countertops so we got to browse those as we waited for the men to get our doors down for us. While we were sitting there we also realized they do this because then you either have to order the more expensive special order items or you have to order their FULL install cabinet sets. As we were sitting there waiting and discussing this KM spoke up and said "Hey - it's supply and demand! What are you gonna do about it?" Exchange City did actually sink in somewhere!

So although it took forever - at least it felt that way - we did manage to get everything we were suppose to, they were very close to what we wanted, we managed to remain within our budget and we had a great economic discussion! Guess you have to take the good with the bad at times.