I give to you the tale of the new fridge that just wouldn't fit.
We have a guest living with us. She is a long time friend and business associate. Her specialty is helping her clients remove friction from their business and home spaces. Having her living with us is a little like having a genie in the house--things just start working better because of the small changes she recommends and implements.
One evening she asked me about the small iceberg forming under the ice maker in the freezer.
"Oh yes, the freezer doesn't keep a consistent temperature--we want a new one but none of the fridges we've looked at will fit in the space. They are all about an inch too tall unless we get rid of that cabinet above the fridge. We are already short on usable storage."
That area of the kitchen isn't really storage. The cabinet is too high to use so we usually do things like pile bags of pretzels on the of the refrigerator. Its an area of clutter we never quite mastered.
"What if I can fix your storage problem"?
 |
| Cabinet-GONE! |
"Ok, but I don't see how you can".
Thus began a whirl wind of our guest doing spacial drawings and creating 3-d mock ups with cardboard in the kitchen to show us a variety of ways we could redo storage. She moved items around showcasing her mock ups to show us how to reclaim space and get our counters back.
After a week of a variety of prototypes, a solution was decided on that would give us four times the space we'd lose from the little cabinet and give us additional clear counter space.
We took a trip to IKEA and found an occasional table that fit the space but needed some minor changes to be perfect. We installed it the next day and started moving items into their new home. The kitchen felt larger and easier to move it.
Even if we didn't get the fridge I felt the effort was completely worth while. (also, I was a little afraid of removing the cabinet and possibly screwing up the look of kitchen if I botched it--so if nothing else happened I was good to go).
The next day Keri and I went for dim sum breakfast and decided on a whim to go up to the IKEA and get some small shelves that our guest pointed out that would help which would clear up some counter space. While up there we went to the neighboring Big Orange (not the real name of the store) to order a new blind for the kitchen.
Lo and behold Big Orange had fridges on sale! And there was the one Keri had just told me about for $1500 off list!
Wow! I was very excited about this synchronicity and called the sales guy over.
Just then Keri noticed some scratches and a small dent. I wasn't too put off because of the price reduction but Keri was significantly less enthused. I told the sales guy we were interested in getting the fridge but then he said 1. delivery wasn't free, 2. they wouldn't take away the old unit and 3. we would have to bring the new unit in ourselves--it was their policy. WTF??? We bought from Big Orange before and they included all of that for free.
The scratches, the difficulty with delivery (it weighs over 300lbs!!! not likely I'm going to be able to move that even with our guest helping!) It started to feel "hard"--like I was about to force something to happen because the deal seemed so good. Even though I was excited by the savings I realized my inner compass was swinging away from it. Keri said she felt it too so we walked out.
In the evening Keri wanted to shop for some pretty baskets for our new storage unit and asked if we could "just look" at the fridges at Giant Yellow Tag (also, not the real name of the store). We went out and Giant Yellow Tag was also having a sale!
I walked the aisles not seeing an option that was good for our kitchen. Just as I thought we ran out of inventory Keri called me one row over.
There in front of us was a floor model fridge for $300 less than the one we saw that afternoon at Big Orange. No scratches on the outside and when we opened it they hadn't even taken out the packing materials--essentially a brand new unit. It wasn't the same maker/model but comparable in every way! Plus purchase included full install plus disposal of old unit.
After paying for the unit, taxes and extended warranty (you want extended warranty that fo sho) the total was the same as the pretax on scratched unit we saw earlier!
We paid the good man and our new fridge will be here thursday. This afternoon we removed the cabinet and the area is ready for our new toy!
No metaphysical mumbo jumbo here. But I have found time and again that when you intentionally make your circumstances ready for the thing you want, that thing has a way of turning up. I think its more like our minds are then trained to go on an intensive search to make the magic happen.
What works, works.
Give it a try. Think of something you really really want. Then do the things you know you need to do to make that thing fit in your life. See what happens. Then send me a message. I want to hear!
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