This weekend, I had big plans to finish the fireplace in the basement, possibly start the next painting project I’m planning (still a secret-sorry!), do some kitchen reno planning, and even enjoy the beautiful weather on Sunday afternoon  by raking leaves and doing some general outdoor cleanup.

But then, I got sick.

Not super sick, but the kind of sick that makes you need a Kleenex every other minute and want to do nothing but sit on your bum and read a book or watch TV while snoozing peacefully on your husband’s shoulder.

So, since I did so much relaxing recuperating, I didn’t do much DIYing. Ah well. Sometimes that happens I guess.

We did still get to start planning the kitchen project, which is going to be big and expensive and a little scary (mostly because it’s so big and expensive). But, I’m starting to get super excited about the possibility of being able to open our refrigerator all the way and have more storage space in there!

What we did accomplish over this lazy weekend was destroying our dishwasher, however, that was still pretty exciting and worth mentioning. Well, in reality, I guess the dishwasher destroyed itself by catching on fire. Yikes.

On Saturday night, we were in the kitchen making dinner and the dishwasher, which was full of dirty dishes just beginning to get clean, started to pour out black smoke into the room. It was also popping and spitting and generally just making a big fuss.

Thankfully, Hubs was right there with me and he quickly took action, investigating the problem.

Pretty soon, he traced it to a shorted out and burning up electrical panel. Yikes. (Under the group of colored wires on the right hand side, you will see some brown and black burn marks. If we hadn’t been standing right there, these black marks would have been MUCH bigger.)

You can see more of the burned marks on the panel below:

 

He dug a little further by taking off the panel at the bottom.

Of course, we unplugged the dishwasher and emptied it (washing all those dishes by hand and putting them away), but it hasn’t been removed yet since we’re not sure what to do with it. (Maybe the people who deliver the new one will haul the old one away?)

Also, a fun side note, we found that there is linoleum under our wood floors in there (that we are soon going to be replacing) so hopefully that means the sub floor won’t be damaged with glue from the current floor! Of course, the glue from the linoleum could be a problem…

Overall, I’m just so so thankful that we were standing right there when it happened. If we’d been in the living room even, there would have been a lot more smoke and potentially damage. Not to mention what would have happened if we had been asleep (we often ran the dishwasher overnight!) or outside. Good grief. It makes me a little sick to think about what could have happened!

In other words, the kitchen remodel would no longer have been an option…it would have been a necessity! And, oh my goodness, what if our new table had been damaged???

Let’s just say, it’s a good reminder to always have one of these nearby:

 

And to always test your smoke detector batteries:

Anyway, we’re both thanking our lucky stars and sending our gratitude up to the Big Man Upstairs for watching out for us and our home. And, we’re shopping for a new dishwasher.

Basically, we were already sort of in the market for a new one since we’re in the middle of this kitchen remodel. We do need to hurry up a little with our choice now though, because Hubs thinks doing the dishes every day will put a strain on our marriage. 🙂

Just kidding.

But we do want to hurry up and make up our mind. So, advice on choosing a dishwasher? Ever had anything like this happen to you? All dishwashers seem about the same to me, so I’m not really sure how to choose one!