The new kitchen will have a peninsula, so we needed a slide-in. Initially I was concerned we'd have to keep using the old one and later pay to take it to the dump, but we learned slide-in ranges are self-supporting, so we can use it until we tear out and rebuild the kitchen. I was so happy to see the delivery guys take out the old stove--in pieces, actually. It was really old and when the guy pulled the oven door up, it just popped off!
The new oven is so great--it was a little nerve-wracking spending so much money on an appliance, but we love it so far. The smooth top is much easier to clean, we have a quick boil eye with optional sizes, a convection option and a warming spot. Andrew cracks me up because he'll turn on the oven light and just watch his food cook. The window is much larger and actually clean enough to see through!
I'm assuming the dishwasher is awesome, too. I'm tempted to load it where it sits and buy paper products...washing all the dishes by hand is definitely getting old. I realize everyone did this at one point in time, but dishwashers are one modern convenience I am in full support of. We cook A LOT and have people over a good bit so we produce tons of dishes.
One note on researching and buying appliances: apparently no dishwasher has fabulous reviews. Seriously. No dishwasher we looked at was given more than three stars. Most had fewer than that.
We asked around some and looked in the store, then researched the ones we'd heard about or initially liked. My sister-in-law doesn't like hers, so we stayed away from that one. My mother-in-law loves hers, so we researched it. We ended up getting it, but the reviews were less than comforting. We were a little nervous about moving forward, but knowing that Andrew's mom falls in the "competent user" category (you have to wonder about some reviewers) and that no model was spectacular helped us make a decision.
Once we knew the dishwasher model, we decided to go with the same series for the range to have two matching appliances. We've looked at electric, gas, dual and induction--those are really sweet...and really pricey. Gas is better for cooking, electric for baking, but dual fuel is expensive, too.
We ended up choosing electric because we plan to install a hot water tap, which will make boiling water just as fast as a gas stove. There aren't as many options for slide-in ranges--at least on display in the store to physically open and such--but the one we were interested in happened to be there. For a few hundred more we could have upgraded to the newest model: basic difference being stainless steel knobs over the black plastic ones. We decided to save some green...and personally, I like the black ones better.
We also bought at a good time. Lowe's had great deals--15% off the dishwasher and 10% off the range. Plus they were doing a tax refund gift card, so we put the total amount of both appliances on the card, bought them with it and on March 18 we got 10% of that amount back on the card. Free hot water tap/other necessity, here we come!
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