Less than two years ago I saw, I fell in love, and I bought – for close to $100 at the time – the sleek retro stainless steel Cuisinart DCC-1200 12-cup coffee maker.

Don’t make the same mistake!

But let’s go back to the rosy, sweet, early days of my appliance relationship…

Right from the start, I loved the Cuisinart’s retro-nostalgia aesthetic – the rounded edges, the cool on/off toggle switch, the low-profile buttons for self-clean and setting the timer clock – enough to cheerfully overlook some of the many design flaws you’ll find other DCC-1200 owners sounding off about in the customer reviews at Amazon.

Oh,  just a few small annoyances at first…

For example, the coffee maker is fairly tall and the water reservoir must be filled through a fairly small opening on the right hand side near the back, so it’s awkward for short people or left-handed people.

Also, it lets a huge amount of steam escape while you’re brewing a pot of coffee, so you’ve got to make sure it’s pulled well out from underneath your upper cabinets when it’s turned on, or the steam can damage the wood.

The Cuisinart DCC-1200 did seem to come up short by a cup of water every time, however – perhaps that explains all the steam? – so if you wanted to make 12 cups of coffee, for example, and you poured in 12 cups of water, you’d only get 11 cups of coffee when it finished the brew cycle.  Never a full pot.

Some people report a lot of spitting and gurgling, but that was not my experience, particularly. My guess is that it might have to do with the mineral content of your water, but that’s just a wild guess…

All in all,  no biggie.

Right?

Especially since this was my first – yes, my very first! – coffee maker with a built-in timer to brew automatically.

Before, I’d always gone with the cheap manual models, whatever brand was on sale in the $20 range, every couple of years, when the old coffee maker gave up the ghost.

This time around, I figured I’d get away from the “disposable” and buy a brand name I’d always associated with high-quality products, go for a model with timer so I could wake up to the smell of delicious coffee in the morning, and get a really good-looking coffee maker instead of the cheap-looking plastic same-old same-old.

Besides, it’s “green” to go with durable, high-quality goods: we’re supposed to buy the best we can afford, so it will have a nice long product life, making good use of resources and all.

Yeah, that’s the theory…

Within a year, my beloved Cuisinart DCC-1200 started to have problems.

First, the clock would randomly reset to 12:00, as if there had been a power outage. Not every day, not in any particular circumstance, nothing you could predict and work around. Just, some mornings the coffee would be all brewed at wake-up time, and other days the coffee maker just never came on – the clock reset before the timer could kick in.

Then, just for laughs, it would sometimes brew just part of a pot before turning itself off. (That’s just cruel.)

And then, after a couple of months of that, the whole display would go dead at random times. No clock, no timer, no way to brew coffee at all.

Sometimes, if I unplugged the coffee maker for a while and then plugged it back in again, it would decide to work again for a day or two, but eventually that made no difference at all.  See, on the Cuisinart DCC-1200, everything is wired through the clock and that lovely toggle switch is spring-loaded so you can’t even turn it on and use a timer plugged in at the outlet, the way you might put lights on a timer when you’re away from home. When the clock display goes blank, that means no coffee for you!

The only thing to do was wait for the coffee maker’s little LCD brain-clock to miraculously light up again, and hope it would keep working just long enough to squeeeeeeze out a pot of coffee before it decided to crap out again.

And now it’s dead.  Two days, three days, nothing…  Begging, muttering, swearing, plugging and unplugging, button-pushing and tapping gently on it’s stainless steel faceplate in hopes of waking up the magic elves inside? All to no avail.

RIP little Cuisinart.

There’s a 3-year warranty, in theory, but I’ve been hearing all kinds of horror stories about the hassle you have to go through (and shipping charges) only to get what may very well be another faulty unit.  Turns out, some of our family members have already been down this road with Cuisinart coffee maker, a different model but still…

Another option: someone over on Fixya.com gave instructions for  taking your Cuisinart apart and baking its circuit board (in the oven!) to repair the “small fissures” that apparently can develop over time. But, c’mon, that’s a bit much for even a DIY-keen Domestik Goddess in the circumstance, what with NOT HAVING COFFEE in her!

I give up.

The lovely attractive retro Cuisinart DCC-1200 coffee maker is sitting out on the back step, ready to go to the landfill.

And on my kitchen counter, in its place?

Back to the ugly and functional. There’s yet another of those ugly old $20 white plastic manual Proctor-Silex coffee makers I’d grown to depend on over the years… and it’s just plugged into a outlet timer at the wall.  And, so far, the new appliance setup is working just fine.

But my heart has been broken, my kitchen decor has been downgraded, and my faith in “reputable” brands  has been irrevocably shaken by what I suspect is just a few cents worth of shoddy electronics made in some offshore sweatshop factory.

No wonder the world’s in rough shape, eh?   I’d switch to drinking tea full-time… but you don’t want to get me started on dripping tea-pot spouts, and last year’s frustrating quest to find an electric kettle that wouldn’t start fires and would keep working for more than a month!

So, what do you use for a coffee maker? (I’d sure welcome your recommendations!)

Whether it’s your family message center, an ever-changing scrapbook page, your photo gallery, or a do-it-yourself collage of spontaneous artwork, the front of the refrigerator is one of the most important pieces of real estate inside your home.

Oh, but those stainless steel appliances that look so elegant and modern? They’re a problem. Because it’s true — and the sales guys won’t think to warn you — your magnets won’t stick to most stainless steel refrigerators.

Photo: DairDair

Designers and decorators and magazine editors don’t quite get it. And I guess the appliance makers don’t either.

They may think we should revel in a pure clean uncluttered fridge front, but guess what?

We don’t.

We don’t want to live with a blank-faced fridge.

We love our fridge magnets — the holiday souvenir magnets and giftshop impulse-buy magnets, the tacky ad magnets from the pizza take-out, magnetic note pads, plastic alphabets, and strange glue-smeared scraps of felt on magnetic tape, made by loving preschool hands — all of them!

Our magnets help us to organize and celebrate our family’s daily lives. Right there at eye level — right in the heart of the house.

What the home appliance manufacturers need to do is sit down in my kitchen for a cup of coffee and look around. Maybe in your kitchen, too. Definitely in my friend Kathy’s kitchen…

Then maybe they’d begin to understand why North America resounds with the wail — “My fridge magnets won’t work on stainless steel!” And then maybe they’d get their act together to give us the one feature in a refrigerator that’s needed above all others: the ability to decorate the front of it with magnets.

Does it matter?

I say, yes.

So I’ve looked into this stainless-steel-fridge-magnet issue a bit, and here’s what I’ve turned up: 7 solutions!

None of these alone is the one perfect solution to your stainless steel fridge art crisis, but there are enough ideas here that some sort of mix-and-match fix should be possible:

1. Different Fridge:

Not all stainless steel appliances are created equal, however. Okay, this is science stuff and makes my eyes glaze over, but it seems to have something to do with the different amounts of nickel in the metal alloy that’s used to face the appliances that we call “stainless steel” appliances.

The good news is, some stainless steel fridges will, in fact, work for fridge magnets — especially if the magnet is fairly strong. The most magnet-friendly appliances have a thin sheet of stainless steel as a decorative face over a metal core that’s more ferromagnetic — meaning a metal that magnets will stick to.

If you haven’t bought a fridge yet, take a few magnets to the store and test the attraction before you make a final buy.

2. Different Side:

Many “stainless steel” refrigerators are made differently on the front than they are on the sides. If your fridge magnets won’t stick to the door, try the side of it — if your kitchen arrangement allows easy access to it, of course.

3. Different Appliance:

Or try the dishwasher, or another convenient appliance. For some reason — perhaps because the smaller expanse of metal on the face doesn’t need to have the same strength as a whole big fridge door, your non-fridge stainless steel appliances seem to be more likely to want to play nice with the magnets.

This is great, if all you want is to put your plastic alphabet magnets out for the little kids to learn to spell while you’re making dinner… but it’s not a great solution for those of us who love the ever-changing eye-level Metropolitan Refrigerator of Art.

4. Different Surface:

You can get magnetic paint and make yourself a new magnet display place from a convenient cupboard door, or even a section of wall. I like this idea very much, and a painter pal tells me that the magnetic paint does work very well.

You might even get a can of blackboard paint, too, and paint yourself a half-and-half magnet board and chalk board.

The only problem there is, in a small kitchen, you might not have the blank wall space to spare.

Oh, and you’d still have a great big bare shiny cold medical-looking stainless steel fridge, just beggin for some crayon art and a souvenir magnet from Niagara Falls…

5. Same Fridge Only Different:

Instead of replacing your old, magnet-friendly fridge with the hip new stainless steel you crave, at the cost of your art display, consider a refinishing job.

A good cabinet shop may be able to fit a new stainless steel panel to the front of your existing fridge, depending on the model and its age. If the new face-panel is thin enough, your magnets should still be able to work.

Or there’s a liquid stainless steel brush-on coating that’s a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a new fridge if all you really need right now is a kitchen decor update.

It goes on a lot like paint, they say, but if that’s more of a do-it-yourself job than you’re keen to take on, I’ll bet the Yellow Pages can find you a professional painter or refinisher who’s done it a dozen times and can make your old fridge look like new stainless steel. For about $50 plus labor.

And your beloved magnets will still work on your fridge.

6. Different Sticky:

Some people say you should just use sticky tape, or reusable putty or clippers or chewing gum… well, something other than magnets, anyway, to post your photos and memo-notes on the fridge.

That’s not a bad idea, and it gives a great excuse to go browse in the office supplies store! The down side: you don’t get to use and display your magnet collection.

7. Different Metal:

So, if you go the tape-and-sticky-gum route for your fridge display, and you still want to show off your magnet collection — or if you’re bound and determined to use those magnets on the fridge, no other surface will do — there’s something called the Choopa Board that could be your fridge’s new best friend.

It’s a metal board that comes in three different sizes (and two colour options: white or stainless steel) with suction cups on the back. You stick one to the front of the fridge, then stick your magnets on the Choopa Board.
Problem solved!

You know those drawers in the bottom of the refrigerator, designed to keep all the fruit and vegetables in one organized and humidity-controlled place… Am I the only one whose “crispers” should be called “slimers”? — Oh-oh, I bought that bunch of arugula last week… or was it the week before? — I’ll bet that never happens to Maria, my new favourite Organizing Guru.

4 Steps to An Organized Refrigerator

by Maria Gracia

A healthy and stress-free life can start in your kitchen. Here are 4 steps to getting your refrigerator organized.

1. TOSS.
   Immediately toss out any food that is spoiled, has an expired date, is unidentifiable or that nobody in your family is ever going to want again. The same goes for the freezer.
2. CLEAN.
   Moving your items from one shelf to the next, empty off each shelf one at a time and wipe clean. Scrape off any leftover bits of food and wipe up any spills. Do the same for the interior refrigerator door and drawers.
3. CATEGORIZE.
   Designate shelves for different categories. Milk, juice and soda bottles on the top shelf. Foods ready to eat (leftovers or foods that need no cooking) on the second shelf. Unprepared foods that need to be cooked on the third shelf. Soda cans and heavy items on the bottom shelf. Veggies and fruits in the produce drawer. Condiments on the interior door.
4. CLEAR OFF THE OUTSIDE.
   Remove all loose papers from the outside of your refrigerator. Toss out anything that is outdated. Put coupons into a coupon organizer. Recipes you’re definitely going to prepare, should be placed in a recipe file. Place other papers into a Tickler File or a filing cabinet.

by Maria Gracia – Get Organized Now!
Want to get organized? Get your FREE Get Organized Now! Idea-Pak, filled with tips and ideas to help you organize your home, your office and your life, at the Get Organized Now! Web site http://www.getorganizednow.com