If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my exciting announcement last week, but for those who didn’t- I’m going to be a #MaytagMoms Dependable Kitchen Ambassador!

What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that Maytag will be providing me with a new set of appliances to put them to the test & share them with you! I’m so completely grateful as my current appliances are in less than stellar quality- plus with all of the time I spend in the kitchen, I overwork those poor old hunks of junk as it is.

When we bought our house, we bought it from an investment company that buys foreclosures and spruces them up. They gave us new carpeting in our great room & new tiles in the kitchen, and even painted all of the rooms {which is good because the office used to be highlighter yellow}. But the previous owners had taken their appliances, and since this was our first house, we didn’t have any. We could afford a new washer & dryer but definitely not all of the kitchen stuff- so since the investment company wanted to sell badly, we had our realtor put into our contract that they needed to provide the kitchen appliances. &I have regretted it eve since.

Our fridge’s water is disgusting. We’ve had someone come out twice to fix it {spending over $100 just for someone to look at it} with no luck- they said the filter is damaged beyond repair. It still makes ice, which Justin uses… but since it’s the same water filter line, I don’t trust the ice that much. &It’s not just that it may have extra invisible stuff that you’d find in the tap water- this water is downright BLACK. Oh & see that jelly stain? I’ve tried everything short of a chisel to remove that but have had to stare at it for a year now. I’m not even sure how jelly got on the ice maker in the first place, but I get the feeling the answer is Shane.

Our fridge is also missing the door to the butter part, rendering that shelf above unusable. But it’s a small fridge, so I still use the shelf. I just duck whenever I open the fridge. That’s normal, right?

The bottom of our fridge is what worries me the most. It’s completely broken, and Shane has a tendency to lose things back there & try to get them. I don’t like the idea of him playing under the fridge {plus it seems like it should be a fire hazard} but when we had the guy out to look at our fridge, he said it wasn’t fixable. Something about it being all one piece & there’s no way to reattach a new piece even if I ordered it for over $100.

Then there’s our stovetop. 95% of these are stains that WILL NOT COME OUT. I’ve tried Comet, Soft Scrub, Vinegar, the dishwasher, bleach, everything. Whoever owned these before us put them through a lot & completely ruined them. Gas stove tops are super hard to clean anyway but even when I actually make the effort, they still look dirty since they are stained like that.

The oven itself works better than the rest of the appliances {even though the stove top has two burners that take FAR too long to ignite & release way too much gas first and then explode when they do light}. The oven usually takes a couple of minutes longer to cook things than it’s supposed to but at least does cook stuff. The main concern I have with the oven is that the door is super broken & only has two positions- all the way open & all the way closed. If you try to leave it anywhere in between, the springs {one of which is missing} shoot the super hot door back up to closed, sometimes hitting your unsuspecting arm in the process.

My microwave is cracked, stained, and annoying. The turntable inside just kind of sits there, it’s not really attached to anything anymore no matter how hard I try. &It’s just totally yellowed, presumably from whatever yucky stuff they were doing that stained the stove top.

&Finally the dishwasher. A very close second {behind the fridge} for my least favorite appliance. First of all, I’m not entirely sure how I ended up with a black dishwasher when the rest are all white. But that’s the least of the issues- the dishes always come out dripping wet {the drying feature is totally broken}, and often small bowls & cups have been tipped upside-down and are full of gross water. I’ve cleaned the filter area several times but yet every time we use it, it smells like burning plastic. &Then there’s the fact that it’s not even attached to the wall anymore on one side. The big screws are all stripped & no matter how many times Justin tries to fix it, it’s to no avail.

So now do you know why I’m so excited to be replacing them??

Later this month, I will be receiving all new appliances. They will be stainless steel, which is great since our white stuff just looks blah with our white cabinets & because with a 2 year old, it is nearly impossible to keep those things clean. They will all match, and they will all work. &I won’t have to wear a hard hat to open my fridge anymore. That’s all I can really ask for.

I’ll be putting the following to the test the Ice20 French Door Refrigerator with Easy Access Refrigerator, the Jetclean Plus Dishwasher with Fully Intergrated Controls, the Over-the-Range Microwave with Stainless Steel Interior, and the 6.2 cu. Ft. Capacity Electric Range with Triple-Choice and Speed Heat Elements. Get ready for a whole lot more recipes to be posted & of course I’ll be sharing my experiences with the appliances themselves. I can’t wait!

Note: I wrote this post participating in an MaytagMoms Dependable Kitchen Ambassador program by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Maytag. I was provided with a Maytag kitchen appliances set, including a refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, and range to facilitate my post.