Man Ears and Dead Appliances

So, we're going through the drive through at McDonald's last night, and Sam says something under his breath about a noise coming from one of the glowing, golden arches. I hear nothing. Do you think men hear pitches that women do not and vice versa? Is there any research on this topic? Seconds later, Little Dude pipes up - unprompted - and says, "What dat noise? It goes zzzzzzzzsh". Are you kidding me? Clearly this was a case of man ears. Finally, after intently listening for a few seconds, I heard it, too. But, I would never have picked up on it had my Y-chromosome loved ones not pointed it out.

Fast forward a few hours and the children are all in bed. Sam is reading The Deerslayer and I'm typing the post about American Foursquares. Suddenly, he looks up from Natty Bumpo and says, "The fridge just broke". Again, I have no idea what he's talking about. "Didn't you hear it?", he continues. "That sound was no good". Man ears. But, guess what. He was totally right.

Our fridge kicked the bucket.

We were planning on replacing the fridge, just not yet. I had wanted to get all the appliances around the same time. I don't know why, probably for the same reasons that I want to have a name for our design style, a clear designation for our inspirational period, and I always begin anything new on a Monday (and preferably at the beginning of the month). But, it broke. So now the money we were planning to use for lighting is going to a new refrigerator that I'd rather not buy right now. Oh, well.

I'd rather not buy one right now because I have absolutely no idea what I want. Actually, I kind of do, but it's not a realistic option. If money were no issue and if I were daring enough, I'd buy one of these... in red :)

If for no other reason than so I could then also get one of these (ignore the leafy stenciling and just absorb the porcelain awesomeness...)









Sigh. I shall not covet. It's not healthy to stare at porcelain and chrome in this greedy manner. Moving on... :)

I cannot buy a beautiful, gleaming, sparkly, shiny, refurbished O'Keefe and Merritt nor a Tappan nor a Northstar nor a new Big Chill. But I wish they made a calendar so I could put it up in my kitchen the way some guys put up fancy schmancy vintage car calendars. And, actually I'm not supposed to be thinking about stoves anyway. It's my fridge that's dead.

I have no idea what I want to buy, but I do know that I do not want stainless steel. I really believe in my heart of hearts that this stainless steel bandwagon is on its way out of town, and there's going to be a new Appliance King in town. Have you seen the colored washers and dryers? Red ones? Of course you have, and I'll bet you anything the next appliance trend is going to be retro stoves in all kinds of cheery, pretty colors. Like red :)

But, we can't afford a cheerily colored fridge right now. And I don't want a stainless one. I have to choose between white, bisque, and black. Honestly, none of the refrigerators I've looked at online today (and there have been a LOT of them) did it for me. I keep asking myself, "What's the most timeless choice?" and "What will still look good in 12 years?" or "What looks good now and would've also looked good back in 1998"? Oh, and "What costs less than $800?".

What do you all think? What makes an appliance withstand the test of an entire decade or - let's be really ambitious - two decades?

I'm thinking white. Jennifer at The Old Painted Cottage has all white appliances and her kitchen is fantastic. And no one doubts Maria's sense of style when she eschews stainless and shows us all her gorgeous vintage-inspired kitchen (again, with all white appliances).

So, maybe white? But there's the issue of the white possibly not looking right with the white of our cabinets. We could just get wild and crazy like Jennifer did. Hmm. I'm kinda stuck on this one.

Ideas anyone? My yogurt is hanging out in the garage tonight :)