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Friday, January 6, 2012

One down - three to go!

This is our microwave. What do you mean something's missing? OH, yes. It's looked that way for long enough that I can't remember when it was last in one piece. So embarrassing. One day the vent cover honestly just fell off. The plastic that held it on broke and that was it. No way to fix it. The microwave itself still worked fine, so we left it. We got so used to it that we never even thought twice when company would come over. People would give it a startled double-take and ask what happened. I can't believe we casually had company with this thing in our kitchen and offered no explanation. Looking back we could have at least ridden the "east coast earthquake" thing for a while. Well anyway, it's history. We got a new one from J's parents for Christmas and this one is GONE. Whew.

And so the Great Kitchen Overhaul of 2012 begins! It feels so great to have one thing crossed off the list already. Strangely, we both felt like that one new appliance made such a difference in our being able to visualize the rest of the transformation. What do you think?
Can you see a stainless stove below? A stainless refrigerator beside it? What about some clean white cabinets? All those things are on our list and we can't wait to cross them off! You might recall my reference to our kitchen as a "functional wreck" in my previous post. While we're at it, let me go ahead and elaborate on that.

We're hoping to do our remaining three appliances (stove, refrigerator, dishwasher) in the next couple of months, and possibly as a bundle. We'll have to see what sales/coupons come up. Here's why...

 THIS...
 is what's wrong with our stove. It's the original from when the house was built in 1999 (so last century). The burners are the old disgusting coil kind. Come on. Do you even know anyone who still has a coil stove? Now you do. The problems with our coil stove are several. Beyond it heating super unevenly, the coils have never been flat. They're all wonky to the point that, as illustrated above, the cookware does not sit flat on them. Gaps between the pan and coils on one side, direct contact on the other... all adds up to unevenly cooked food. And if you're making something like eggs or using cooking oil you can bet it will all be pooled in one side of the pan based on the slope. PITA.

Moving on to door appliance #2, THIS is what's wrong with our fridge.
It sticks out about five inches too far and prevents the pantry door from opening. Yes, this is as far as our pantry door opens. Ever. We've been reaching in to put away/pull out food like this for 4.5 years. I kind of wish I'd had J take the picture with me standing there so you could see just how annoyingly small that opening is. So while a new refrigerator will be beautiful and nice, the sad part is that we need a counter-depth model for the pantry door to be able to open. This is sad because, although smaller, counter-depth refrigerators are more expensive than the great big ones. Explain me that one.

Appliance number three is our dishwasher. I've never been a fan of it. I feel like the inside arrangement is not very intuitive. Otherwise there's not really anything wrong with it except that it's black while the stove, microwave and refrigerator are white, and it's old. So it too will be replaced with the others. I think we might try to Craigslist them or donate them since they all function just fine. Seems rather wasteful to send working appliances to sit in a dump. 

We also have a heap of tile that we bought a while ago. We knew we wanted to put ceramic in several places in our house including the kitchen, and it was neutral and cheap. It's not my very favorite tile I've ever seen and we didn't even shop around for it. We happened upon it in the store one day and it was suitable enough for this house since we don't plan to live here for that many more years. It's nice and neutral so we figured it would be an instant upgrade/value added to have ceramic kitchen floor vs. well, this which we currently have.....
Yep. That's good ole linoleum. Green fake marbled linoleum. Can you believe someone actually picked that out for their house? It gives me the shivers. 

That was a pretty good run-down of the Great Kitchen Overhaul of 2012. New appliances, tile on the floor, paint on the walls and cabinets. I'd love to add two new cabinets for extra storage (and to eliminate a hutch we have that I hate) creating a peninsula, but that would also mean new countertops and I'm not sure those badboys are in the budget. That could depend on what sort of deal we get on appliances and what sort of deal we can find on counters. Stay tuned though, because this is just the beginning. I'm excited to document the whole process and transformation, and mostly to have a practically new kitchen in the end. Woot!

2 comments:

  1. I would DEF save that linoleum for a white elephant party. That's like, the best non-gift EVER. Can't wait to see the transformation!!

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  2. I think changing out the microwave really did make a huge difference! I'm excited to see things as they happen. You know I love painted cabinets. :) Good luck (and be sure to do it when you have a bunch of extra time, because it really does take longer than you think.) But it will be SO worth it!

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