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merging two households?

thisismynickname2thisismynickname2 member
First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
in Registry and Gift Forum
I decided to start our registry online since FI is too busy with school and doesn't really like shopping.

I've got 11 things.

Mostly in the "wine" and "entertaining" sections.

Hm.

If you merged two households, what did you find you needed, or wanted? FMIL tells me I should "upgrade" but honestly the only thing I want to upgrade is to a four-slice toaster. (Check!) I have a ton of wine glasses on the list because I tend to break mine and collectively our glasses are all souvenirs from wineries. (So classy, we are.)

I feel like I must be missing something but we each have full kitchens of all the usual basic stuff and there's no need for bed, bath, decor or furniture.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
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Re: merging two households?

  • AprilH81AprilH81 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    We merged households about 6 months before the wedding.  At that time we donated a lot of duplicates and most of H's bachelor stuff (low quality, mismatched, mine were nicer, etc.).

    We put the following on our registry:
    -four slice toaster 
    -shark steam mop
    -shark handheld vacuum (for pet hair)
    -Bone China (I wanted to upgrade from my crappy, but usable, dishes)
    -Calphalon Contemporary pots & pans
    -new bedding set
    -pyrex containers with lids
    -Corningware bakeware set
    -a few odds and ends for kitchen gadgets

    Most of the stuff on our registry was for entertaining purposes.  We don't do it often enough because of the size of our current house, but I like to set a nice table when we do.

    I put placemats, napkins and napkin rings on our Crate & Barrel registry.  A glass drink dispense, a beverage tub, stainless steel drink tub and other similar items.

    As long as the items are something that you both like/will use you can go outside of the normal home/kitchen items.  Do you like to go camping?  Register for sleeping bags and a tent.  Do you like to host game night?  Register for new board games.

    And if you truly don't want/need anything go ahead and keep a small registry.
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  • MollyandDMollyandD member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment Name Dropper
    I agree that going to a store is the best way to do this. I am not merging households exactly. I lived in a teeny tiny apartment and he lived with his parents (but he had previously lived with roommates out of state). Last March, I bought a house. We lived together by that point, but neither of us had acquired enough on our own to fill the house. Going from a little bitty one bedroom apartment to a decent three bedroom house was a big change.

    We thought it was nice to walk around the store and see in person what we liked. Oh, and I have been registering for towels a lot. We now have two bathrooms, and I just would like to have matching towels and hand towels. I also registered for lots of picture frames and shelves. I'd like to hang up framed pictures of us from the wedding, once it happens.
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  • mlg78mlg78 member
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    edited February 2014
    Sheets! Who doesn't always need some new sheets? The same goes for towels. And plastic containers? Those always get nasty after a while. Perhaps you don't need them now but you'll be wishing you had them in a year or so. Lamps? I'm sure if you really wandered around a store, you'd find more things than you realize. Frames? Especially wedding-oriented frames. Organizational stuff? With merging two households, that stuff would come in handy!
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  • csuavecsuave member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper

    If you are not having a shower then no need to worry, a small registry is fine.  If you are having a shower and need to add more things think about what could be upgraded. 

    Our upgrades were: a new coffee maker, new drill, stand mixer, tea kettle, soap dispenser, bath and kitchen towels, better vacuum, nice air mattress, new cookie sheets, pyrex bake and take, espresso machine, a really nice garbage can and a nicer George Forman with removable plates.

    Do you have wood floors?  Hoover floormate or Shark steam mop might be nice.  Carpet?  A carpet steam cleaner is a nice thing to have.

    We also upgraded to a king size bed and registered for new sheets and king size blanket.

    And we found some storage solutions at BBB that were really helpful: split top storage bench with shoe rack inserts, over the door pantry rack, over the door hooks, towel rack,  and drawer dividers.  Target.com had excellent Suncast recycling bins.

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  • thisismynickname2thisismynickname2 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    Thanks everyone! Hopefully when we go to the store we can decide on many of those things. We will need new bedding and I'd like to be able to set a nice table too...
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  • hoffsehoffse member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer Name Dropper
    There's a lot to be said for those $10-$15 small kitchen gadgets.  I don't know about you, but they are way too expensive for me to buy an entire set myself, but we ended up with most of them after the wedding as gifts.  And oh my goodness do they make a HUGE difference.  H is finishing up his last year of law school a few hours away, so he took the cheap stuff that he had with him - and he couldn't believe how much nicer it is to cook in our apartment than for him to cook at school.  Once he graduates in May we are donating all the old crappy ones. 

    I will ditto the recommendation of nice bedding and towels.  We ended up with complete sets of Pottery Barn bedding/towels, and I don't think we'll ever go back.  They are miles ahead of the stuff we bought when just needed something to get by.

    A couple other random things we registered for, received, and use way more than I expected we would:

    -Shark vacuum (gets better reviews than the Dyson and is less than half the price)
    -Rowenta iron 
    -Rowenta garment steamer 
    -Small electric coffee grinder
    -Egg cooker (I know, I know - but we use it all the time)
    -High-end set of knives (also makes a HUGE difference)
    -A nice pitcher
    -Ceramic mixing bowls (try to find a set where the biggest bowl is bigger than 5 qt)
    -Oxo pop containers (more expensive than I would buy for myself but soooooo amazing)
    -Silicone spoons, spatulas, and pot holders - dishwasher safe and won't ruin your non-stick skillets
    -4-slice toaster

    If you want to be able to set a nice table, I suggest registering for a set of nice dishes with the serving pieces that go along with it.  Odds are, many of the serving pieces will be a great size for large gatherings, but too big for 2-4 people.  To fix that problem, H and I also registered for a second set of small serving pieces that we could dress up with our china or dress down with our everyday (so that we had less to store).  We got 3 of the smaller serving bowls, 2 of the small bread trays, and the chip n dip, and we use them all the time.  They're actually a much better size for most meals than the big serving pieces that match the dishes you pick.  For reference, we picked this for our everyday:


    This for our china:


    And this for our "smaller" serving pieces that we use with both.  It actually works surprisingly well with both patterns, and it prevents our table from being 100% matchy-matchy:


    Finally, you might want to consider an outdoor set.  We got some really nice melamine plates from PB and a set of seriously cool casual water glasses (this but in turquoise):

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