Our Home Improvement Holidays

Our furnace started making interesting noises, and Joe did not feel good about letting it go any longer. So on Monday the heating and air conditioning guys came to our house, and we got a brand new furnace! Of course Ephraim and Jacob were SO excited to watch what was going on. I did not have to entertain them most of the day. Ephraim was talkative and asked a lot of questions, but the furnace guys were pretty good about it.

Can you believe that our old furnace was built in 1976? Holy Cow! That means it was 35 years old! No wonder it started making funny noises, etc.

We have known that this day was coming, so it was not a big surprise that we needed to get a new furnace. It does kind of stink to have to get a new furnace right before Christmas, but the good news is that I get an air conditioner too!

Yep. For the past 6 years that we have lived in our house we have had an ancient furnace and no air conditioning. We just had an evaporative cooler (aka swamp cooler). Won't it be so nice this summer to be able to turn on the air conditioner and have the cool air blow out all the vents in the house? Heaven!

It was funny because when I mentioned to Joe that the boys were fascinated by the work being done, he told me that HE was fascinated too. Must be a guy thing.

We got a pretty good deal on our furnace and a free upgrade on our AC unit, which made us happy. The installers were at our house for about 12 hours, but they got the job done!

I am thankful that our old furnace lasted so long and that we have the means to buy a new one. Plus, isn't my new furnace beautiful and shiny?

They had to make the hole in our bathroom wall bigger, so now Joe gets to figure out what kind of doors to put in and all that fun stuff. But the furnace seems to work great.

That's not the only shiny thing in our house either! A few weeks ago our dishwasher gave up the ghost (just before Halloween, coincidentally). It just would not drain and the motor died. So I got a beautiful new dishwasher.

So what do you think of the dishwasher, Amelia?

Oooh! Aaahhh! Pretty! Now my dishes actually get clean! Plus I don't have to wonder if I killed all the mold and junk that was growing in our old dishwasher.

So I guess you could say we are having a home improvement Christmas. Joe and I are getting each other a new furnace, air conditioner, and dishwasher. They may not be fun gifts, but we will definitely enjoy them! I am just thankful that we will have a warm house in the winter, a cool house in the summer, and nice, clean dishes!