Filling a gaping hole. . .

Opened the door after a great day touring the Bush (#43) Presidential Library to be greeted by the refrigerator’s beeping sound.  “Uh oh, we left one of the refrigerator doors open.”  Opened and closed the door:  the beeping didn’t stop!  Let’s try this again…nope beeping, beeping, beeping so turned it off completely and called Barry from Running Bear RV Service.  We’d become fast friends with Barry since arriving in Northlake, Texas; first he fixed the large “kitchen” slide out and then the landing legs but I’ll skip this long story and share the refrigerator saga.

So sad, because from all outward and inside appearances it is in perfect condition.

First Barry did the same magnet fix that Rick in Ventura had done earlier in the year.  Yeah, the refrigerator started working so Barry went on his merry way.  A couple minutes later I detected a strong ammonia smell, an indication that the whole cooling unit was gone.  This is serious!  We have options, albeit all pretty much involving a serious expenditure of money:  1)replace the cooling unit ($1,500 give or take), 2)replace the refrigerator with another RV style refrigerator (about $3,000,) and 3)replace refrigerator with residential type (cost unknown depending on the refrigerator.)  We quickly eliminated option #2---$3,000 is just too too much!  We decide to go the new cooling unit route after checking the cost of a new counter depth frig, the only size which will fit into the limited space.  RVers know that exact size is more often more important than cost and style when buying for a RV home.  “Ok, Barry let’s go with replacing the cooling unit.”

Even though we feel that it is a total waste of time we stop in to check the Sears Outlet near the movie theater where we went to see “Unbroken.”   What are the odds that there will be a refrigerator which fits in the 35” wide by 27” deep by maximum 68” tall opening…at a decent price?  Not going to happen but there it is! And it has been marked down another time not shown on this tag! (GET ripped off the final sale price.)  It is a discontinued model (who cares what year your refrigerator is?) and has a small dent on the door (“we’ll cover it with a magnet”) but the savings are enough to make us almost cheer!

Hot buy? You bet it’s a HOT BUY! “Barry, cancel option #1!”

Old refrigerator leaving.

A little collateral damage.  The glass in the china cabinet gets broken taking the old unit out (I’ve been wanting to replace it with opaque glass so I’m sort of happy. . .shhh, don’t tell GET.)

Gaping hole in our home-ouch!

Ah, the Frigidaire Gallery fits after trimming off about 1” of side molding and the gaping hole is filled,   Note the  “Uff Da” magnet covering the little dent?  We are not boondockers so we are still deciding whether or not to buy an invertor or a generator to power the refrigerator on the rare occasion that we have no electric power.  Most likely an inverter.

We retrieve our food from Kelle & Joe’s freezer and unpack the ice chest—yeah!

So far I have found two baskets to utilize the 5” space on top.  Still looking for a narrow basket to fill the space between.  (Remember the “exact size is a more often more important than cost and style”  I mentioned earlier? Forgot this rule and came home with two perfect baskets that were 1” too tall-back to Michael’s!)

Oh dear, I lost the wonderful drawer under the RV refrigerator! Have to figure out where my “Tupperware” is going to call home.

This turned out to be a domino effect project:  moved the canned goods to have a place for the Tupperware drawer, moved the linens to make space for the canned goods, moved some of my crafts to make space for the linens and on and on and on!  Almost worse than moving!

Let’s see now, landing legs are working,  kitchen slide out is moving in and out and we once again have a refrigerator.  What is next?  This is like living in a house. . .except we can move when we want to!

Exactly why we love full time RVing!