I personally am not a huge fan of buying kitchen appliances.
However, I must say, in the old house we had good appliances. Everything worked, and we were happy with them.
It was definitely not the same situation when we moved here. Everything was 15 or more years old, and hanging on by a thread. We hated the fridge, the dishwasher made a lot of noise and took some food off the dishes, but not much, and the stove only worked when we lit the burners manually and the smell was less than attractive throughout the whole house. Something wasn't right.
So we replaced the fridge and dishwasher in the fall, and last summer I bought a cheap replacement stove from a used appliance place on Morningside north of Sheppard.
Won't do that again.
Good Friday, Gabi working on her online course, I'm trying to keep the girls at least a bit out of her hair, and I decide to make pancakes. This goes well, and Chloe ate at least 4, maybe 5. For someone who really only eats when she feels like it, it was obvious that she felt like it.
The problem arose when I went to turn off the burner.
I couldn't. In fact, another burner came on at the same time. Nothing I tried was shutting these burners off, and in addition to that whatever was wrong had turned them to high. The only thing I could think of to do was to pull it out from the wall and unplug it. So - do I spend $100 (more than the stove is worth at this point) to get a repair guy in, or do we (literally) pull the plug on this and replace it with something good? Since we're saving for a new kitchen, and the oven was part of the plan, is now the time?
Definitely. I want a high-quality piece to cook on, one that I'm not gonna have to worry about all the time.
So Maya spent the day with Baba and Gogo making easter eggs and cupcakes, and Chloe spent the day with Nonna and Tata making a mess, and Gabi and I went on a date. Appliance shopping. Aren't we romantic? We did sneak a sushi lunch in there, to be fair.
We started at Sears, and Gabi completely shocked me by being willing to go back to gas, something that I thought wasn't an option. I had a few things on my wishlist, being convection, coil top and if possible a double oven. The glass top stoves just don't appeal to either one of us. Sears had a few possibilities, but to get the features we liked we were going to have to go well north of $2000, something I wasn't too keen on. The salesman, however, was terrific, and I actually would have liked to get him a sale for the time he spent with us.
Then we went to Lowe's, where the salesman was so obnoxiously smarmy that Gabi walked away completely offended and I had to phone her to find her.
Finally, we went to the Maytag store in Ajax, where I had found the most amazing price on our fridge - only after we bought it, of course. So I knew their deals were good, and they had something that kind of blew us both away. I wanted to save on delivery by taking it home ourselves, so in stock was kind of an important factor as well.
They had a discontinued Jenn-Air dual-fuel oven (gas cooktop, electric ovens) - yes, you read that right - ovens - it's a dual - with the controls on top so Chloe couldn't turn on a burner in white and at a good price. I'm not sure if it's a great price, but I'm certainly ok with it. The fact that it's discontinued has meant that I can't find the MSRP for it. Thanks to my dad and my neighbour Jeff for helping me get it out of the van, and Gabriel for helping me get the old one out and this one into the house - with the double oven and gas fixtures, it's a heavy sucker. The gas installer comes in the morning, and I'm looking forward to doing some serious healthy cooking.
So - after all this, I still wish I'd listened to Gabi and taken the old stove out of the last house with us - but hey, we all make mistakes. As long as this one works out, I'll be okay with it.
And now, the only appliance issue we have is the washing machine with the case of wanderlust - but as long as you move it back after each load, it's just fine. It will last for years - I hope....
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