Finally, the post that was supposed to happen about a week and a half ago….
Our original plan when buying our house was to replace appliance as they broke down. None of them are very nice, but all were still functioning. We finally gave up on that plan with our stove though. This thing is AWFUL. The oven temp is off by 10-20 degrees, the burners only go from Off to High, it has pilot lights for the burners (instead of a sparking system) which keeps sections of the top super hot and instantly bake on any spills making cleanup impossible, and the whole thing leaks heat which has just sent us over the edge this summer.
Ugh, Just…ugh. It actually looks better in this picture than in real life because you can’t see all the baked on crud over the pilot lights.
So what did we want in a stove?
- Gas
- 30″ freestanding
- Upper broiler (vs bottom drawer broiler)
- Edge to edge cooking grates
- Oval 5th burner
- White
We were also hoping to spend around $600, but had some wiggle room if we found a stove with All The Things.
We started out by hitting the nearby stores–Menards, Home Depot, Best Buy, and Warner Stellian. I snapped pictures with my phone of the full range plus a closeup of the sales tag (model # and price) and then we did some follow up research online to check out reviews. How the heck did people buy anything before the internet?
Our top 3 favs:
Top broiler + 5th (oval!) burner…. and all in white. Whoa.
Matt kind of fell in love with this one because it was on mega-sale so it actually fell in our budget (plus a 5th-oval!-burner and a gorgeous blue interior). The blue interior would have totally sold me if I was looking for stainless (they didn’t make it in white). Why wouldn’t you want to smile every time you opened your stove???
And the Winner is….
The GE was the most expensive but Matt decided that he loved the 5th oval burner and since he’s the cook in the house, who am I to argue (and I just couldn’t get behind the stainless when there were white options out there)? Plus, after the delivery fiasco and the second delivery scandal, we were ultimately given rebates which brought it back down to within our hoped-for range. Quite honestly though, I’d have much rather just gotten the damn thing on time and without the headache.
While I will certainly continue to shop at Home Depot (our local in-store employees are awesome), I will say I am VERY skeptical of doing any special orders from them in the future. The main reason is because if something goes wrong they just don’t seem to have the control to do much about it. It’s rather unfortunate because we have a bunch of appliances (fridge, dishwasher, washer, dryer, water heater) that will need to be replaced in the near future, plus a full kitchen remodel (countertops, cabinets, sink, and back splash), bathroom remodel (tile, tile, and more tile), and assorted flooring projects all on our radar. In all honestly I’ll probably give them a second chance but they’re not exactly my first choice at the moment.