Well, we finally took the plunge: We decided to begin remodeling our kitchen over Thanksgiving weekend, after years of doing nothing but dreaming and collecting inspiration photos.
Background
Our kitchen is more than 30 years old. Our beige cabinets are depressing and look like they belong in some sad rental apartment. It's embarrassing to have guests over, because they always notice the exposed electrical circuitry on our 70's style microwave oven. Also, our ventilation fan stopped working years ago, which makes our entire house stink when cooking, and makes our kitchen a lot dirtier and harder to clean, with all the grease deposited around the kitchen, instead of vented out of our home.
Note: exposed circuit board on microwave
What really got my butt into gear was visiting my Mom in Chicago over Thanksgiving weekend, however. Her kitchen was in a worst state of disrepair than ours. And due to impending retirement, and for medical reasons, has allowed her kitchen to fall apart. I realized that if we didn't renovate our own kitchen within a few years, that we would end up with a kitchen that was falling apart, like my Mom's.
Wisely, Mark suggested that we start by purchasing our kitchen appliances, because all cabinetry would have to fit around whatever kitchen appliances we chose. This was a really smart move, because we discovered that standard appliances these days would not fit into the non-standard slots of our outdated kitchen.
Because we plan to sell our place within 5 years, I initially wanted to focus on lower end appliances designed only to not repel potential buyers. However, when working with my husband, Mark, who is an avid cook, and who also has expensive tastes, some scope creep happened, and we ended up spending a thousand dollars or so more anticipated:
Dishwasher
We ended up with a Bosch SHE4AT75UC dishwasher from Meyer Kitchens in Mountain View. Consumer Reports gives Bosch dishwashers high marks, and had suggested steering away from Samsung and LG dishwashers due to reliability issues. I have worked with German, industrial washers in the past, so I favored German brands for dishwashing. Even at the lower price spectrum, our Bosch dishwasher scored high marks for cleaning. (At a full 2 hour wash cycle, I would hope so!) The adjustability of the racks inside, allowing for ease of loading, was also attractive.
Refrigerator
We decided to get a smaller Samsung RF261BEAESR French door refrigerator from Best Buy. Our rationale was, because we had a smaller kitchen, we didn't want a Goliath in our kitchen. Yet, we still wanted an ice-maker, and we also wanted a drinking water feature. This was the cheapest refrigerator that offered these features. It didn't offer a touch panel display, and the water fountain is inside the refrigerator, instead of outside on the door. But we figured these were benefits, instead of disadvantages. The touch panel displays are an unnecessary expense, and a potential point of failure. Also having the water dispenser on the inside gives the refrigerator extra capacity because there are no additional connections attaching the water line to the swinging door.
Oven and Range
Here is where Mark blew our budget. We opted for the GE convection oven with electrical range. Because it is a slide-in oven instead of a free-standing oven, it is about $1000 extra. The slide-in oven fits closely with the surrounding cabinetry, and overhangs over the top of adjacent countertops. Therefore, it is a bit more expensive to install as well. But we thought the slide-in is more aesthetically attractive than free-standing ovens because it looks more "built-in". It is also easier to clean. Spills would not end up in hard to reach gaps around the oven, but would instead drip onto the adjacent counters. The convection oven allows for more even heat dispersal for when multiple items are placed in the oven. And since Mark would like to cook multiple sheets of cookies at once, specifically French macarons, the convection feature was important to him.
Over-the-range Microwave
The most important element in our GE microwave, for us, was the ventilation. Not many microwaves are able to evacuate 400 cubic feet per minute at our price point. This rate matches many professional hoods available.
Summary
All in all, we spent way under the $6000 limit that some experts budget for buying kitchen appliances and we were able to research and purchase all 4 appliances within 48 hours. For research, I highly recommend getting a Consumer Reports subscription because, not only does it allow you access to product ratings, but it also gives you a quick summary on how to select kitchen appliances in the first place. Visiting consumerreports.org saved hours of internet research by encapsulating the basics into a short 3 minute video or article. I also highly recommend visiting Best Buy for a hands on feel for the appliances. The Best Buy workers, though over-worked this past Black Friday weekend, had much more expertise than the salespeople at the higher end store that we visited. Also, I would not shun visiting a high end store, like Meyer Kitchens, too. We actually ended up getting better prices there, than we got at Best Buy because the sales people there give discretionary discounts, which we were able to secure because we got so many appliances at the same time. They were also able to reduce the moving price to $50 for all 3 appliances, which wasn't as good as the free delivery offered by Best Buy, but was certainly better than moving all 3 appliances ourselves.
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