Will Black Ever Be Back?

Or, conversely, will people ever get tired of stainless steel appliances?  When we bought our house, I had stainless steel appliances all picked out, after looking through a magazine the builder had given me.  Then I saw an ad for a special cleaner to get off all the fingerprints from the stainless steel appliances...so I reconsidered.  I decided it would be too difficult to keep stainless steel clean, so I opted for black.  Stainless steel was a passing fad, anyway, I told myself.  Too sterile and antiseptic.  People would tire of the look and the upkeep.

That was 12 years ago, and stainless steel still is everywhere.  At least if you believe any magazine that has pictures of kitchens in them.  Occasionally you may see a fridge and/or dishwasher that are covered to match the cabinetry, but the stove/oven are always stainless steel.  And usually Wolf.  I have never seen a kitchen with black appliances in any magazine I've looked at in the past 12 years, at least.

I liked watching the Sopranos, because they had an upscale house and black kitchen appliances.  When was that, the early to mid 2000s?  But we rewatched the entire series recently, and I noticed that at some point, toward the last seasons, the black appliances disappeared.  They were replaced by a combo of cabinet-matching and stainless steel appliances.  Sigh.

And once recently on House Hunters International, a couple looked at a model condo that had black appliances--I thought it looked really nice.  They purchased a condo in that complex, but agreed that the black appliances would need to be upgraded to stainless steel.

A few months ago, I was scouting out appliances in anticipation of at least some of ours nearing their useful life.  I asked him about stainless steel vs black--he said about half of purchases were now for black, up from what it was a few years ago.  But the fact is, stainless steel is more expensive, and everyone knows it.  So I don't think they're going anywhere, unfortunately.

Our microwave was the first appliance to die, and I considered stainless.  But it's hard to change just one appliance, and we have no reason to buy all new appliances.  So I stuck with black, and even downgraded from the Kitchenaid we had to a plain GE (not even GE Profile).  They're all made by the same manufacturer, but Kitchenaid is considered more upscale.  But the GE cost only about $350 as opposed to $500+.  And all we do is reheat stuff.  It works fine (although I'm annoyed that if you hit a button it automatically runs for that amount of minutes on High; you have to press "cook time" first to get less than a minute and/or 90 percent heat.

I think about "black vs stainless" because if we ever decided to sell the house, I'm sure the realtor would note that black appliances are a negative.

Someone needs to come up with a shade of black that's just as expensive as stainless--call it onyx.  Something posh.  So I can keep my black appliances without second-guessing.

The Year of Positive Thinking

I've struggled with this my whole life.  From an early age, it seems, the thoughts in my head were negative.  I wish I had learned about cognitive behavior therapy, and the fact that you can train your brain toward positive.  But I didn't learn of that until many years later--in the past 15 years.  Even though I did have therapy when I was in my mid-20s, I don't remember the focus on thought patterns.

I remember my sister saying to me, "why do you always have to be so negative;" probably when I was a teenager.  I used to tell myself that assuming things would not go well was a way of protecting me--so that if things didn't go well, I wouldn't be disappointed.  But I didn't realize that negative thinking can influence outcomes--that is, influence behavior related to outcomes.

I've noticed since I stopped working full time that my mind is freer to think.  But the trend has started to be that it retrieves negative incidents from my past.  For now when I notice that, I start repeating "be positive" over and over.  As much to block out the negative as to try to replace the negative with positive.

I know people are wired differently; some people are like me, with the wiring tilting toward negative.  I've decided to make a concerted effort this year to keep my thoughts positive.  The start is to notice the negative and redirect.  This week hasn't been easy, because I've been sick with the flu (despite getting a flu shot) and feel low as a result.

The tricky thing about positive thinking is, I think it has to focus on keeping a positive outlook, but recognizing you can't control all outcomes.  Especially outcomes involving others.  For example, a recent magazine article (Real Simple) suggests visualizing yourself 10 years from now, with positive images.  How do you be positive while still being realistic?  I'm not going to visualize myself living in a mansion, for example.  But it gets harder when visualizing how things will be for my son 10 years from now.  I know what I want for him--so I'll visualize those.  And of course, I hear a voice saying, "but what if they don't happen?"  And there's the rub.