Some Confusion Cleared

Yesterday I took a break from the sorting and eliminating to concentrate on window shutters and a refrigerator for my new home. I have the options price list for two of the house models at Sun City Texas. I found that the brand of blinds and shutters they use is Hunter Douglas. The wood plantation shutters option is very expensive. From looking at the floor plans I am afraid my house has more window area than the larger of the two Sun City Texas models for which I have the price lists. My sales associate at Frisco Lakes told me I should be able to get the plantation shutters cheaper than what Del Webb has offered at other locations because apparently Del Webb adds a rather large markup.

 

I found the Hunter Douglas website and saw that the Hunter Douglas shutters come in widths starting at 7 inches. I was relieved to see that because I am sure the little vertical windows in the master bedroom are at least 7 inches wide. Hunter Douglas has a booklet entitled, "How to Be Shutter Savvy." I requested a copy from the website. My former neighbor told me that she got her plantation shutters from a place called The Blind Factory here in Beaumont. I looked them up in the phone book. I had a hard time finding them because they are just a little office in an industrial park off of College. The door was locked. They must close on Saturday. I did get a list of authorized Hunter Douglas dealers in the Frisco area. I would really like to have a ballpark figure for the cost of using the wood plantation shutters on all the windows in the house. There is one sliding glass door that will also need some kind of cover. At Sun City Texas Del Webb offered the vertical blinds from Hunter Douglas. I am not sure that is what I want.

 

I also looked at GE, Conn's and Sears websites for a General Electric Profile refrigerator. I have selected black appliances for my kitchen. I had a choice of stainless steel, black or white appliances at no additional cost. Stainless steel appliances are more expensive, but I chose black because I do not want to spend the rest of my life wiping fingerprints off of stainless steel. Also I selected a primarily black granite for the kitchen counter tops.

 

I grew rather frustrated when my search for GE Profile refrigerators pulled up 132 models. I did not know enough about the features to narrow the search. I went to the Conn's appliance store at Parkdale. I told the salesman I was looking for a house that is being built in the Dallas area. He said Conn's has stores in Dallas, and the sale could be handled from Beaumont. We walked around the refrigerators. I kept telling him I wanted a GE black Profile model. He kept giving me allot of salesman meaningless yada, yada and not listening to me. Finally he decided that there was not one GE Profile refrigerator on the floor. He walked me over to a computer and called a woman over to do a search of the GE website. Apparently this dud did not know how to use the computer. They huddled around the computer and blocked my view. Finally they got to a point where they had 132 models of GE Profile refrigerators on the screen. I had reached that point at 6 AM. I told them I would check back in a few weeks and left.

 

Then I went to Sears. I found a GE Profile side by side refrigerator in stainless steel that looked promising. I opened the door and found a stack of paper brochures. I helped myself to one. At that point a young salesman named Mark came over. He said the model I was looking at did not come in black. I told him what I wanted. He listened to me. That was a promising start. I told him how my current refrigerator sticks out so far from the counter. He said GE calls the shallow models CustomStyle. They are more expensive and have less capacity. I told him my household consists of just me, and the capacity is not that important. My current refrigerator has a capacity of 26.7 cu. ft. I feel like I have been living with the Incredible Hulk. Mark showed me several models and then walked over to the computer. He pulled up the GE profile models from the Sears website and entered criteria to narrow the search. He got the search down to four black, side by side, CustomStyle models. I wrote down the model numbers and prices. I asked for his phone number and told him I wanted to go home and pull the models up on my computer and compare the features.

 

When I got home, I was able to pull up the same four models on the Sears website and do a side by side feature comparison. I noted that Sears said they had a price match plus policy and they offered 12-month zero percent financing. I went back to the GE website and did another search. My criteria also narrowed this search to four models. The most expensive model was the same number as Sears. Some of the others had slightly different model numbers. I did Froogle and Pricegrabber searches and found that Home Depot had the most expensive model for $220 less than Sears. I set up a Pricegrabber price alert.

 

One difference I noticed between the most expensive model, and the next model is that the higher priced model has high-gloss doors and the next model has textured doors. At this point I called Mark. He confirmed the more expensive model might be prone to showing fingerprints. I told him about the lower price at Home Depot. He said Sears would match the price plus an additional 10 percent of the price difference. I asked him to explain the twelve month zero percent financing. He confirmed that you could make no payments for twelve months and then pay the total with no interest. I asked if that was a limited time offer, and he said that they offer it most of the time. Mark is a good salesman. He knows his product and listens to the customer. He also says he can make all the arrangements from Beaumont. I will not make the purchase until closing time nears, but I am tempted to give Mark the sale. I think my sales associate gave me good advice when she said to go to Sears for the refrigerator.