Who are we? We are our stories.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Why a Stove?

I have ownership in this food heating device.


It started with a leaky faucet in the bathroom. Let the refurbishing begin. Bathroom and kitchen.  And let's have it done while we are south over winter. Eventually we blew through $20,000. Included in the project(s) were two rooms of faucets, sinks, plumbing, lighting, painting, a lot of miscellaneous, and solid-surface countertops. But not a stove.

Our stove was a downdraft vented, dual-fuel range (gas top burners/electric convection oven), a little dated looking, but very functional. While we were in Texas work went on. In the process of lifting the oven out to install countertops and re-installing the oven, "something" happened. We returned from Texas to a beautiful kitchen. But the downdraft venting didn't work. I cannot tell you how many times the fellow returned to fix it. Eventually we figured out it was just this complicated 3-function switch. We found out this was a special switch, not available anywhere since 2015. In the world. People buy whole old Jenn-Air ranges on eBay just to harvest the switch. But what the hell, our range was 22 years old, we would just replace it with a new range. Just pop out the old range and plug in a new one. 

Then it got ugly. Nothing fit; all the venting needed to be redone, the new range wouldn't fit the hole in the brand new countertop, the gas line was in the way, the venting all needed to be redone. Nothing fit. After much cutting, grinding, belt sanding, eventually the range fit the hole in the top. Then began hours of professionals laying on the floor, poking, grunting, swearing. As they left I overheard one to the other, "If my wife ever wants one of those fuckin stoves, you just shoot me."

Then this morning it was me on the floor, fighting to get the electronics for the vent fan hooked up. The instructions looked so easy. It wasn't. Eventually I went down to the basement and threw the breaker. We had won.



So pardon me for sharing pictures of our god-damned stove. It looks so innocent. - Gunnar

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Twenty years ago it was decided to upgrade the 100 year old kitchen. Everything would change except the stove. Then we asw our friends new stove and blew the whole budget on a new stove. Kitchen was built of whatever cheap materials we could find but the drawers were made with dovetail joints...

You do not get pictures of my kitchen, yours is in a much fancier league.

Gunnar Berg said...

I don't feel our kitchen is "fancy". It is small and comfortable, with some really nice cabinetry by Dennis Jones and Marv Schulz 22 years ago. Hard to find that kind of craftsmanship these days.

mike w. said...

Reading about that switch reminded me of the old saw which begins: "For the want of a nail..."

Gunnar Berg said...

For want of a switch the stove was lost ... For want of a stove a bundle of money was lost.