As I walk into the kitchen something looks different. Something is unfamiliar.
It takes me a second to realise what it is.
There is now a white fridge door where a cupboard door used to be.
We are the first and only people to live in our house. It wasn’t built when we bought it and it came with a built in kitchen. Along with the kitchen came a built-in fridge.
Apart from it’s ability to keep things cool this built-in fridge has always been something of a disappointment. It has a freezer box at the top of it that kept freezing up so we didn’t use it. That left a couple of shelves that you couldn’t see to the back of and a box bit at the bottom which was supposed to have a salad box in it, but that proved useless so we didn’t use it.
For years now it has been my intention to take out the built-in fridge and replace it with one of more practical use, but for some reason I never got around to it.
Part of the reason was a fear of what I might find. Other jobs I’ve undertaken in the kitchen have consistently turned into something bigger than planned.
And I never got around to doing something about it.
It hung there as a job that needed doing, but never got done.
Every time I couldn’t find something in the fridge I would wonder why I hadn’t got rid.
We even went to look at new fridges. You’d think it was an easy job to find a fridge to go in the standard sized 600mm wide gap that a kitchen cupboard leaves, but it’s not that easy at all. We did find one we liked, but it was expensive.
And the job remained as something that needed doing.
Every time I found something way out of date at the back of the fridge, that we’d forgotten about because we couldn’t see it, I would wonder why I hadn’t replaced.
We’ve lived in this house for 11 years now.
Then about 10 days ago I decided that enough was enough, it was time for a transformation. I searched around the internet for a deal on the fridge that we really wanted and I bought it.
(I was still worried about what I might find when I took the old fridge out so made sure that I could return the new one for free)
The new fridge arrived last Friday. Before doing anything I searched around to find the installation instructions for the old fridge and found them.
On Saturday I started to remove the old fridge.
Within an hour the old fridge was out and the new fridge was installed. AFTER 11 YEARS -AN HOUR!!!
The new fridge is fabulous. We can store things sensibly in it. It hasn’t got a redundant freezer box so has more room at the top. It’s got a new style of design so has shelves all the way to the bottom. The shelves are more like drawers and pull out all the way so there is no back for things to get lost in.
If I’m honest I’m quite excited about this fridge. When I go to get the milk out of it in the morning it’s a pleasure to be able to pull out the drawer at the bottom and pick up the milk.
A job well done.
Why did I put this off for so long I ask myself?
Why?
I have some reasons, but none of them very good ones.
As I look around my life there a number of jobs like this one, some of them practical, some of them a bit more personal. They’re sitting, waiting for me to do something with them.
I suspect that you are the same?
Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!
Proverbs 14:23
(For those of you that care about these things it’s a Bosch Logixx fridge)
Graham Chastney 