Today I am sharing a couple of kitchen upgrades that have led to a much more peaceful life around here. Do you ever wonder why we live with things that aren’t working for so darn long? Are you guilty of that? Not only has our coffee maker been on the fritz, but our vacuum hasn’t worked in over a year. Ridiculous, I know. So we finally did something about it and I am one happy mama.
COFFEE FIRST
The back story on this is that our coffee maker has been on its way out for a couple of months and it has been driving me nuts. Look, mama needs her coffee! I only drink it in the morning but I don’t function well until I’ve had the first cup of hot coffee. We are actually embarking on a few more kitchen upgrades soon. I can’t wait to share the plan with you all. Because of that we debated on what type of coffee maker to buy. Do we step up our game and get one that makes every fancy drink you can imagine or stick with the tried and true?
I know a few people who have this gorgeous machine. While I was tempted, it really would have been a waste of money for us. We are simple people when it comes to coffee. In fact we both drink it black and just want it to be hot and taste great. So a simple, streamline coffee maker is really all we need. We found this one on eBay. I always thought eBay was just about bidding, but 81% of the products are available with the “Buy it Now” option.
My favorite part is knowing I can set the timer and have a pot of hot coffee ready for me as soon as my eyes open. I do the majority of my blogging work in the morning here in my kitchen. Once the kids are off to school I savor the quite time and my coffee. I have to say this coffee maker caught my eye as you can brew a pot or single serve. Not a bad option.
More Coffee Makers
CRUMBS BE GONE
You know you’re getting old when all you want for Mother’s Day is a new vacuum. No joke! When this arrived my kids thought I was nuts. I’ve never been so excited to see something to help me clean. We win the award for never having made good decisions when it came to our vacuums. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that our last one pushed the crumbs around instead of picking them up. It was so annoying. My sister has been raving about this Dyson for so long. We finally broke down and went for it and I’m in love. It actually works! And it’s cordless. This is new territory for us, my friends and I’m loving it. We bought the Dyson v7 brand new off of eBay because it was the best price. Plus free shipping (69% of products ship for free).
We keep this charging in our garage which is nearby to the kitchen. Being able to grab it and quickly clean up the crumbs has been life changing. Despite having children who are getting older, our floor is still a magnet for crumbs. Every. Single. Day.
Please ignore the scuffs on the floor. Sadly our floors were never sealed. If you know of a solution, I am all ears.
The other thing I love about this beauty is that it fits in between my stools. So easy to clean this area. Because the kids sit here after school to do homework and eat their snacks, it’s the area I need to clean the most. That and under our breakfast table. Plus when you have a pink vacuum it’s pretty difficult not to be in a good mood when cleaning.
It’s also really easy to swap out the attachments and make this a hand-held small vacuum. I managed to lose the charging cord to our previous shop vac when we moved. This is great because it will always be charging on the wall and I can’t misplace the cord. The wall mount has a spot for not only the vacuum but the two extra attachments as well. That makes this organization loving girl very happy.
Upgrade Your Kitchen
If you are looking to upgrade your appliances, whether large or small, I rounded up some more great deals. The nice thing about eBay is that you can get up to 40% off kitchen electrics and cookware.
*Proud to partner with eBay on this post. Affiliate links used.
I’ve had the same vacuum for a year and I LOVE it! Best decision ever – so easy, so light weight and powerful! You will NOT regret the investment.
Oh girl, while I hated shelling out the $$$ for our Dyson stick vac it was life changing and so worth it. Especially with an 85 lb Golden Retriever! LOL
Isn’t that vacuum the best?! I told my hubby that I have a love affair with the Dyson. 🙂 I actually look forward to vacuuming now and use it a couple times a day. Our labradoodle doesn’t shed but he will track things in from outdoors. Like Lauren said, well worth the money. Love your plaid shirt Courtney!
I love my Dyson!! I have two now and use one for the garage and dirty things and one for our hardwoods..my kids love to use it too. I keep a wooden chopstick tucked by the trash can to poke out the fluff when I empty. They’re also an excellent spider removal device!
Oh wow, I’d love that vacuum cleaner, looks awesome ! Yes, that’s us, we never bought the right vacuum cleaner machine, ever ! I also want that coffee maker, but my old still works perfectly, it’s old and it looks like it’s about to quit yet !
Thank you for sharing pretty girl, I’m happy for you.
Fabby
I’ve been wanting that vacuum, but can’t decide between the V7 or V8 because of the battery life. Have you noticed if the V7 has enough charge to last while vacuuming the entire house?
Also, I really love this blog because of your authenticity. It’s one of the first I check every morning. 🙂
I went from HATING to vacuum to LOVING to vacuum, all because of that Dyson! Bravo!
I asked for a hand held vacuum for Mother’s Day, also! Oh, the glamour! I was desperate for something to use on my wood stairs instead of lugging my big vacuum up and down and I love it!
Just a heads up for the dual function coffee pot featured……We are huge coffee and tea drinkers and bought that dual coffee pot single cup/full pot…..it functions fine for the full pot feature but is awful for the single cup! It literally splatters water in every direction, side ways and even down to the floor, while brewing the single cup (unless you have a very tall travel style cup which blocks the splatter.) We now place our coffee mug on top of an upside down ramekin to make the mug taller and attempt to reduce the splatter. A K-cup will explode inside while attempting to brew about every month or so ….makes a crazy mess. Oh and water tends to leak from the single cup water reservoir. Then after you finally have a cup of coffee full of grounds and water everywhere, the single cup side will leak coffee and water through the spout indefinitely. Removing the empty k cup won’t help much. We should have stuck to our side by side set up with a Cuisinart coffee pot beside of a Keurig…..both of which worked great they just took up too much counter space.
How funny is it that us ladies are all asking to be gifted cordless dysons?!! I had mine for Christmas a few years ago and I still LOVE it. We have a very hairy chocolate lab and pale floors so it was a complete game-changer for me. However, I would say, I think you have to be prepared that they won’t last forever. I have had to change the head on mine (the bit with the whizzy brush bit inside that makes contact with the floor) and they are not cheap (around £50 here in the UK but I got mine in a sale) and the filter (which was £13). However, I had it for about 2.5 years before I needed to do this and it is working HARD with all that dog hair! It has been fine ever since (probably another year) so I’m just thinking if I need to do that every few years, it’s probably not the end of the world and on the plus side, I haven’t seen any deterioration in battery life over that time (which I thought might be an issue) and it’s still just as effective as ever at picking up the dirt. I can’t do the whole house in one go with it so I try to do downstairs one day and upstairs on another day and use the ‘max’ setting as infrequently as possible because it drains the battery so fast. Thanks so much for sharing. Now I think I need a pink one! *adds to 2018 Christmas list* 😉