We have a stacker washing machine in the bathroom upstairs, one of those top-loaders with the dryer that is actually attached to it and hangs over the top.  It fits in a narrow area that used to be a closet.  It’s very old and the S.O. has been limping it along for years with screws and duct tape, which is a  testament to both his skills and the wonders of  yet one more thing the miraculous substance of duct tape can do.  Unfortunately, the machine has suddenly developed a new symptom, which includes a horrific shudder similar to either an earthquake or a subway train, accompanied by a grinding/pounding noise – nothing that tape was going to remedy.   We finally had to cave and get a new one.  You would think this would have been one smooth credit card transaction and easy delivery, but….no.

First off, we wanted a top loader again.  The space is too narrow for a side by side and too low to raise up a dryer high enough to open the top-loading washer.  This meant getting yet another stacker.  Choices in that area are both limited and disappointing, so there has been no “new toy” excitement over this – it’s essentially the boring same old same old.    I guess I should have done all the laundry (subway shudder and all) before they came to install the new one, but since they were supposed to deliver in the morning, I missed my window of opportunity.  So there is a mountain of laundry overflowing out of baskets in one of the bedrooms. Delivery was set for Saturday and, of course, it snowed overnight and continued to snow throughout the day. Creature of habit, I like to get all the laundry out of the way on Saturday…OK, maybe a little OCD here, but Saturday is usually housecleaning day when you work all week.

Yay for the delivery guys, who actually did show up, in the storm and all……..with their wet, snowy boots on my floors and rugs…but who’s complaining?  New machine!  Alas (alas!!!) ….it would not fit up the stairs.  And the old one would not fit to go down the stairs.  Which raised the question of “How did the old one get up there in the first place?”  The answer being that S.O. had originally taken the old one apart and hauled it up (with help) in two pieces.  I guess he forgot about that? But that was an old, crappy machine.  They were not going to dismantle a brand new one.

So S.O. decided to take apart the newel posts on the Victorian staircase of this old house so as to gain a few inches in order to get the machines to their respective places.  There are now pieces of wood and molding and (sigh) some splintered pieces of molding and nails and screws and tools all over the place. I am trying to keep my cool throughout this by Not Looking, focusing on my own little messes and trying to straighten them up (my Packrat Project continues).  In the meantime, the delivery guys left, with a promise to return and carry the machines up, down and out.  By eight-thirty p.m. we dejectedly resigned ourselves to the fact that they were not returning, even though the lady on the phone at the Sears center said they would be.

There is now a spanking new washer/dryer sitting in our dining room, right inside the front door, making a decorating statement.  There is also a decrepit, old washer/dryer sitting in the middle of the upstairs hallway, right at my back as I type.  They removed it from the bathroom and placed it squarely on top of my woven rug from Morocco, which makes me want to scream, since it leaked some water on top of it.  I am trying to keep it all together and in perspective by Looking The Other Way, which includes ignoring the growing pile of dirty laundry stashed behind a closed bedroom door.  Supposedly they will return “sometime” Monday to move them.   There are bigger things in life to gripe about, really.   This is just one of life’s little annoyances.  But….ya know?  Really.

Dining room chic…

and upstairs hallway conversation piece…..