I have an old Caloric double oven (oven over oven) stove/range
that is so so old, it was in my house when we moved in 14 years ago and it was old then.
and I just LOVE it!

It has tons of space when the holidays come,
you can cook things at two different temperatures, (or keep things warm)

I would replace it, but I just never even see Rnages or stoves like this anymore-
The top one is always a microwave now, and I don't want that.

Also I recently did a mini-makeover in my kitchen and painted my cabinets a deep warm scandinavian red!
It's very dramatic and I love it. The walls are a creamy pale eggnog color.

What do I not love?
It's a smallish galley kitchen with a dearth of counter space, and what counter there are seem to be magnets for every piece of useless paper in the house....
I also don't like the old formica counters, but am not ready to spend the bucks for new ones.

irisarbor wrote:I have an old Caloric double oven (oven over oven) stove/range
that is so so old, it was in my house when we moved in 14 years ago and it was old then.
and I just LOVE it!

Also I recently did a mini-makeover in my kitchen and painted my cabinets a deep warm scandinavian red!
It's very dramatic and I love it. The walls are a creamy pale eggnog color.

My mom had an oven like this when I was growing up (pre-microwave days). She still misses it.

Your color scheme sounds beautiful.

Anyone know good places to get granite countertops? I'm also wondering how much they cost per linear foot of counter in the kitchen?

My in-house expert says granite countertop prices are quoted in square feet, and the typical range is $50 to $75/sf, installed.

toria wrote:Anyone know good places to get granite countertops? I'm also wondering how much they cost per linear foot of counter in the kitchen?

PM me -- I have a recommendation for a guy. I would strongly recommend that you go with an smaller individual company than Lowe's Depot. They act as middleman, which means that two different companies have to make money (Lowe's Depot and the granite guy). If you ask around, you'll find that there's plenty of smaller companies in the Chicagoland area. Now is a good time to buy -- a lot of those companies are hurting and will cut you a good deal. Lowe's Depot, on the other hand, will stick to their pre-depression pricing structure.

Katie is correct -- they're quoted by the square foot, installed. I would say between about $45-90 per sq. ft/installed. Also, the pricing varies -- sometimes greatly -- depending upon the category of granite you're looking at. Flashier granite with more "movement" tends to be higher priced. Simpler granite with less depth is lower priced. I have honed "Aztec Brown"* which is dark brown with charcoal notes and it was the cheapest granite my guy sold. Why did I choose that granite? Because it went best with my kitchen -- and it just also happened to be the cheapest.

*Might be called something different down here. Granite names change depending upon the central quarry it's is sourced from. My came from Cleveland, so it's probably not called "Aztec Brown" in Chicagoland.

toria wrote:Anyone know good places to get granite countertops? I'm also wondering how much they cost per linear foot of counter in the kitchen?

There are places everywhere. Good places everywhere. If you want GREAT, then I'd suggest
The Marble Place. Take a trip east on Ogden, and call before you go, and make SURE Joe is going to be there. You want to talk with Joe. If you go when he is not there, the ppl in the shop will tell you to look around, but to come back when Joe is there. Joe will help you figure out which is the stone for you. Above and beyond. Truly, IMO. He'll show you the value stones, and also let you know if he thinks your choice fits your needs. We thought about some lighter stones, that were much more expensive, and he steered us clear of those because of what our concerns were about granite, and how we'd use it. He also wanted us to go to the warehouse and pick out the slab of granite we wanted him to cut from one we made our final selection, because the slabs can have differences in them. He offered so many explanations on how/why to pick our stone, what edge to put on it, and WHY, it was almost scary how easy it was. He gave us as many samples as we wanted to take home, and place on the bare cabinet tops, and told us how to sample these (different times of day, with different pulls etc. A grade. A grade.

I hate that our new kitchen is on the very verge of completion but it's not done yet! We dismantled the old kitchen Labor Day weekend.

We gutted the kitchen in our 1920s home. Although I would have appreciated the original kitchen, I bought the house from a couple who didn't...and they did a half-baked remodeling in the early '90s. Husband and I finally got sick of it and did the kitchen this year.

We expanded into an adjacent room, losing a wall of cabinets in the process but reconfiguring the counter and gaining a dishwasher. We chose products to be as green as possible and to ease my guilt over tearing out an original wall.

Our custom built cabinets are beautiful, but not without some functional glitches. We chose a cabinetmaker who uses non-urea formaldehyde plywoods and non-toxic finishes. The doors are fabricated from local wood. We found a lumber mill that uses only Chicago area trees that have been cut down because they were diseased or in the way of construction. We used Black Walnut for its distinctive grain. The doors are finished with oil and wax.

Tiles are recycled glass and the floor is the original maple. We had icky white paint stripped off and the new finish is a water-based low odor one. The adjacent room has oak floors so we stripped in Black Walnut to fill in between the two woods (where the wall was removed.)

I couldn't find a recycled glass/quartz/paper counter top I liked, so we went with certified soapstone and a matching sink. It requires oiling with mineral oil on occasion to give it a darkness and sheen but no other treatment. So far, I love the soapstone...the color is wonderful and it's marbled with green.

Lighting is LED for the most part...and supposed to last 20 years before it starts to lose intensity. I hope so since the fixtures are now plastered into the ceiling. Two pendant lights came from a salvage dealer who removed them from an 1890s mansion on Astor st.

Other things I love, our contractor. He corrected mistakes our designer made, tweaked cabinet glitches to make things function as they should, found plumbers and electricians that understood how to work with a quirky old house and actually found someone to replace the plaster ceiling we removed to improve the room's lighting.

Someday I'll be able to comment on the appliances...but the diswasher was delieverd damaged and we're waiting on a new one, the touch panel on the GE range doesn't work (Tuesday they're supposed to fix it) and a leveling bolt on the refrigerator snapped during installation.

Diannie wrote:I hate that our new kitchen is on the very verge of completion but it's not done yet! We dismantled the old kitchen Labor Day weekend.

First rule of project management:
The first 90% of the work takes the first 90% of the time, the last 10% of the work takes the other 90% of the time.

Some more Diannie wrote:Other things I love, our contractor.

You are lucky, blessed, have good karma and probably didn't get suckered into choosing the lowest bidder. See elsewhere on this forum for nightmares. Can I call you for a referral on our next remodel?

beyond the things i mentioned upthread, I also like

additional "likes"
-kitchen window for extra light, and a view of our yard
-deck right off the kitchen, although I would prefer French doors vs the glass slider I have, having the deck, and access to the smokers, grills, and our dining area out there is priceless.

needs:
-We could use a better exhaust fan with all the deep fying, stir fry in the wok, and other smokey, high smell value things we cook.
- we need a pantry, ours now is some racks down in the basement, more of a food storeroom than a pantry.
-tile backspashes behind the sink, and the stove, that may be a project we tackle this winter.

JoelF wrote:

Some more Diannie wrote:Other things I love, our contractor.

You are lucky, blessed, have good karma and probably didn't get suckered into choosing the lowest bidder. See elsewhere on this forum for nightmares. Can I call you for a referral on our next remodel?

We got three bids. Our contractor was the middle bidder. He spelled out exactly what his bid included and what each component would cost. For example he counted outlets and priced that component of the electrical as X outlets at Y each = price. That way if we wanted to add or subtract an outlet later, we knew exactly how much it'd cost us.

We had two change orders, one biggie because once we opened the ceiling we discovered the wall we wanted removed was a bearing wall. Why we didn't know this is a very long story and we live in an old house. The final change order encompased a slew of little items...the kind that might not have happened if our designer had insisted on shop drawings from the cabinetmaker....

I refer him happily.

JoelF wrote:

Diannie wrote:I hate that our new kitchen is on the very verge of completion but it's not done yet! We dismantled the old kitchen Labor Day weekend.

First rule of project management:
The first 90% of the work takes the first 90% of the time, the last 10% of the work takes the other 90% of the time.

True dat! I had my kitchen gutted back in late June/early July and it's still not done yet. The first "phase" went really quickly (a couple of weeks), the second phase done my mid-September, they just started on the third (and final) phase and judging by what they got done last week, I'm estimating it won't be done until early December. Good thing they're not paid by the hour.

Wish I could have a Lego island: http://www.thecoolhunter.net/article/de ... go-kitchen

Sadly, my childhood Lego collection is insufficient.

Another want for a future kitchen is an appliance garage or cabinet. I'd like to have all the frequently used small appliances on the counter, but easily hidden. In our last kitchen, we had a ton of counter space and had most of our appliances all lined up. It was great to have them so accessible - - but I would have liked to have had a door to put them away without having to pick them up.

Ronna

REB wrote:Another want for a future kitchen is an appliance garage or cabinet. I'd like to have all the frequently used small appliances on the counter, but easily hidden. In our last kitchen, we had a ton of counter space and had most of our appliances all lined up. It was great to have them so accessible - - but I would have liked to have had a door to put them away without having to pick them up.

Ronna

Bingo! Absolutely correct. Thank you for putting into words something that I've pondered for a long, long time. It's so handy to have them right there when you need them. I hate having to pick up and put away the KitchenAid or the food processor. Just slide it back in. Perfecto! If anyone knows of anything like this, I'm all ears....

Our equipment (are these things "appliances"?) garage is a heavy-duty wire shelf above the washer and dryer (which are in a closet in the kitchen). This is for occasionally used devices (crock pot, rice cooker, etc.). The electric kettle and toaster stay on the counter due to frequency of use, and the Kitchen-Aid due to weight.

Only problem with storing things in the laundry closet is lint, which I can rinse off every time, yeah, but it gets tiresome. I used to cover them all with kitchen towels, but ran short of kitchen towels. Lately I've been covering them with cling film.

I hate having to pick up and put away the KitchenAid or the food processor.

For a KitchenAid mixer, if you can afford the space, a lift is the perfect solution. It not only allows for quick retrieval of the mixer but expands counter space:

http://www.ovisonline.com/store/detail. ... AS-ML-HDCR

spinynorman99 wrote:

I hate having to pick up and put away the KitchenAid or the food processor.

For a KitchenAid mixer, if you can afford the space, a lift is the perfect solution. It not only allows for quick retrieval of the mixer but expands counter space:

http://www.ovisonline.com/store/detail. ... AS-ML-HDCR

Cool beans! (and website). Thanks for the link.

Gypsy Boy wrote:

REB wrote:Another want for a future kitchen is an appliance garage or cabinet. I'd like to have all the frequently used small appliances on the counter, but easily hidden. In our last kitchen, we had a ton of counter space and had most of our appliances all lined up. It was great to have them so accessible - - but I would have liked to have had a door to put them away without having to pick them up.

Ronna

Bingo! Absolutely correct. Thank you for putting into words something that I've pondered for a long, long time. It's so handy to have them right there when you need them. I hate having to pick up and put away the KitchenAid or the food processor. Just slide it back in. Perfecto! If anyone knows of anything like this, I'm all ears....

Here's one way to do it:


I wouldn't go with glass doors personally as the whole idea is to hide things, but this gives you the idea.

I haven't been able to find pics quickly, but I've also seen roll down doors - - like garage doors - - covering quite a bit of counter length.

The only problem with these ideas is that you have to have so much counter space that you don't mind devoting a bunch to appliance storage.

Ronna

An appliance garage is optimally recessed into the wall (requiring dead space behind the wall) or in a wasted corner. Simply moving appliances to a counter-height upper cabinet may make for a neater appearance but wastes valuable counter space.

spinynorman99 wrote:An appliance garage is optimally recessed into the wall (requiring dead space behind the wall) or in a wasted corner. Simply moving appliances to a counter-height upper cabinet may make for a neater appearance but wastes valuable counter space.

True. Which is why I said that it only works if you have plenty of other counter space. In my last kitchen, it would've been wonderful to contain/hide the 5-6 appliances we had lined up along the wall. If you have plenty of counter space, why wouldn't a counter-height upper cabinet or an appliance garage be a wonderful way of hiding appliances while keeping them easily accessible?

Ronna

Or even something configured like an old-fashioned broom closet with pull-outs?

My kitchen was redone about a year before I bought my house by the previous owner. They did a really nice job, but it’s not perfect. I have granite countertops and had no idea until reading this thread that I was supposed to do anything special for them. They are dark though, so maybe that’s why it seems to me they look no different after five years of heavy use.

Likes: said countertops, pantry (my house is a one story bungalow and the stairs to the attic are in the kitchen behind a door; the previous owner lined this whole area with shelves and the steps provide an easy way to see different boxed goods); bottom freezer refrigerator for reasons discussed above.

Dislikes: the sink—it’s got the two compartments with the garbage disposal on the small side, which I guess makes sense because you can lay out things to soak or clean things to dry in the big side but it seems like dirty dishes are piled into a space they don’t fit in, and it’s white plastic, which I suppose means fewer broken wine glasses, but the garbage disposal side always has a yellowish brownish stained look that doesn’t come off if wiped with a sponge but goes away if you fill it up with water and add a little bleach but who wants to think of that on a regular basis; lack of ventilation for the stove—they opened the wall to the dining/living area and put a bar level opening above the stove which is great in terms of looking out from the stove to the world, but also means there’s no place for a hood and no way to prevent the entire house from smelling like whatever’s cooking; the Bosch dishwasher, it looks nice and it’s really quiet but doesn’t perform well especially on the upper level (and I always make sure the jets can spin) and it also has an alarm telling you when the dishes are clean that goes off every fifteen minutes; I’ve looked on the web for a way to turn this off but all the advice is for ones that have a display—mine has no display so the advice doesn’t help. So you can’t start a load and go to bed.

the Bosch dishwasher, it looks nice and it’s really quiet but doesn’t perform well especially on the upper level (and I always make sure the jets can spin) and it also has an alarm telling you when the dishes are clean that goes off every fifteen minutes; I’ve looked on the web for a way to turn this off but all the advice is for ones that have a display—mine has no display so the advice doesn’t help. So you can’t start a load and go to bed.

I have a Bosch that beeps when done, but it stops after doing it a few times (I also think the interval period is more like 5 minutes on mine).

I love my pot rack and knife rack. It is very handy to have what I need at hand.

I wish I had more cabinet space or a pantry.

REB wrote:

This would never work in my kitchen because there would be so much stuff piled on the counter that you couldn't open the doors.

Last night's Manchurian Curry and subsequent cleanup made me realize what would benefit me greatly in the kitchen: a larger stove with wider-spaced burners, and a deeper sink. Trying to use three pans at once on the stove was a pain, I had to play musical pans. And the sink is insufficiently capacious, leading to wet floors.