A battle rages

For all my frugality and loving of the planet, I do have some major downfalls. As a designer, I naturally love color and texture and design. I like it when things match and coordinate, and things that don't bother me greatly.

Before I was in the real world, I was known to have changed my underwear to coordinate with my workout clothes if what I wore the rest of the day was different. I have since moved on from that part of my life and I'm now lucky if what I wear to workout in is even clean, that is if I get to workout at all.

The reason I bring this up is that I have a dilemma: my coffee pot



My coffee pot was not used much until recently. As a move to be more natural and more frugal, my husband and I decided he would stop drinking a Monster (or two) a day and switch to homemade coffee in his wonderful stainless steel thermos. This has saved us about $35/month and I'm sure it is much better for him as well.

Consequently, the coffee pot that used to hide in the cupboard most of the time until weekends or sometimes when we had guests, now practically lives on the counter. This poses two problems. One: I don't really have room for it to live there permanently, I just don't. And two: IT'S WHITE!! I have all stainless steel and black appliances with stone and wood floor and cabinets and a black marble-looking laminate countertop. With a white coffee pot. Even my coffee grinder is stainless. The only other white appliances I have are the electric can opener (which I never use, only Hubby and only occasionally) and my KitchenAid (which at least has a stainless bowl).

Stainless frig, grinder, blender, etc. with the
coffee pot that sticks out like a sore thumb!

We even have a stainless microwave!

My stainless steel stove and range hood.

This bothers me to no end. I hate looking at it. Problem is it works just fine. It's no thrills: put coffee and water in, plug in and turn on, pour coffee, unplug and turn off. Simple, easy. No clock, no timer, nothing. I love it for it's functionality. But I hate that it's white.

The frugal and eco part of me is preventing me from replacing it with something that will match my decor. But the designer part of me is dying slowly inside. I try and clean it up and put it away every night, just to pull it out the next morning, but seriously folks, that's hard to do. I don't need a new one, it works fine. I shouldn't buy something made on the other side of the world with non-recycleable plastic parts and get rid of the same. I shouldn't and I won't, but it hurts.

For now, I'm getting by with treating it not so nicely - secretly hoping it will die on us soon. Oh the struggles of my life :)

PS, for anyone who feels pity, my birthday is early April and I promise to freecycle any still-working appliance I replace :)