KitchenCounters

Kitchen Countertops

I have a great Father-In_Law who offered to purchase a brand new stainless steel refrigerator for my wife, but she and I both felt our older white unit was working pretty good and figured he could probably use his money more wisely on other things like .... well I don't know, but we appreciated the offer and banked it for the future. 8 MONTHS LATER......

Well it finally happened. First the range top started acting up, couldn't get it to stop the clicking thing (supposed to happen only when you first turn a burner on and it ignites the gas). So I unplugged the circuit and we settled for using a lighter (the old fashion way) when we needed a flame.

Then our MAYTAG washer (that never needs a repair guy ...!) during the spin cycle, starting sounding like a jet engine taking off on a Navy Carrier. OK, so what, the clothes still got cleaned and the water seemed to drain out .... just in case let's call that Maytag guy and get a second opinion. WOW!!!! that was a sticker shock. Although our desktop computer's are getting cheaper, the one's they use in washer/dryer's are going up.... Oh yeah, labor costs are pretty much out of this world too. We have a stackable unit so that meant we lost both our washer and dryer if we elected to replace vice repair the washer - which the serviceman assured us was going south sometime real soon.

So we hopped in our car and decided to stop by Home Depot for some hands on research... we did the Internet thing first but now we needed to see IT up close and personal. Stainless steel was now our best friend and we played with the idea of fulfilling our dreams and getting a gas oven/range combo in place of the cook top. Kind of like the idea of convection cooking too. After all it was all the rage in Europe when we toured there a long time ago and it was so much fun burning our food when following the instructions.

Well, one thing led to another.. (Home Depot had a sale, oh my, and it seemed the more we bought the more we would save) so we DID IT! We switched over to a stainless steel kitchen, 80% gas cooking, the other 20% is the microwave OF COuRSE we also got a new refrigerator (thanks Robert M.C. So we replaced all of our kitchen items with stainless steel versions, i.e. side by side refrigerator, microwave convection oven, and upright range/oven combination.

COULDN'T JUST BUY NEW APPLIANCES - and leave well enough alone...... my wife goaded me into a new counter top as well. Here are the pics of the story just told. They don't do it justice though as the whole thing turned out very nice and the kitchen even appears to have gotten bigger. In fact my electric bill went down almost $50/mnth and the gas went up about $12/mnth. I say that's going green all around.