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And I have been since the day I first saw this house. The one in the kitchen leaves much to be desired. While an entire kitchen reno is years down the line, I'm not willing to continue my relationship with the current posers that rest atop the cabinetry-which I also don't care for, but am willing to accommodate.

When the dishwasher was introduced to the kitchen during some renovation in the 60s or 70s, apparently, it was an afterthought. Upon studying the cabinet sizes, I decided that the cabinet to the right of the dishwasher was moved over to gain space for said dishwasher. How did I come upon this conclusion, you're dying to ask?

Well, it would appear that the countertop was originally cut to the appropriate length for the 21" cabinet and not the 24" dishwasher. My guess it that either the pattern was still available or that a piece of matching countertop just happened to be lying around and was put into service over the cabinet previously positioned in the place of the dishwasher. Make sense?

You can see the genius of such plan in the attached documentation.
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This message has been edited. Last edited by: *~Bella~*,

Lovely, yes?

Of course by the time we acquired it, the previous dishwasher was permanently out of service, thus the introduction of a new washer in its place.

Old washer, new washer-no matter. The fact that the seam where the two countertops adjoin were neither supported nor attached to each other in such a manner as to avoid drooping and acceptance of liquids, we find ourselves presented with a length of top bent from exhaustion of holding itself up for all these years and one puffy seam screaming to share it's biological secrets with the unsuspecting.

That there is a matching exploding seam right next to the sink further adds an element of disconcertion to the anticipation of culinary bliss. Thus I have been on a quest for the perfect countertop that will allay all suspicions of the deeply permeated leavings of the previous owner.

To this end, we have found a lovely laminate countertop-the house not being of a style where in its present condition granite would be appropriate. Kind of like a farmer in a tiara, that.

Lovely choice, I think with bits of rust for the cabinetry, bits of pale for the white appliances, and as an overall color accommodates the yellow and cream 1960s or 70s sheet vinyl with its orange and green flowers in alternating squares that begs for replacement throughout the kitchen and laundry room.

With a fine technical drawing in hand and pricing quoted, all there was left was to wait for the large sample of color to arrive. It came on Saturday.

Since we're used to seeing it in white-make that white with various shades of coffee stains, bleach yellowings, gold flecks of the pattern tarnishing to green by the second-I thought it might be good to experiment with what a darker color would do to the overall of the room. Being that it was the weekend and that it would be a few days before I could place my order, I made a little trip to the basement to see what kind of color might be lying about waiting to do a test run on some funky countertop.

It was oil-based and the first coat, so it took a significant amount of time to dry during which Donnie and I and one miscreant cat managed to get ourselves into it.

While the real countertop color is a bit darker, I think it will be fine which is good because I wanted a darker top that didn't contrast with the cabinets as much. Co-ordination without high contrast. I like things that way.

I'm sure you can see already where some of the problem lies.

If I get new countertops, there is no way I'm putting that drop in stove back. It still works although there are no numbers on the dial to the oven, which makes baking interesting. The large burner in front doesn't work either and then there's always those things lurking in places that couldn't be reached when Donnie initially cleaned it although he took most of it apart to do so. So, the stove is out.

BUT, as Donnie has a nice vintage stove that works great, has lots of drawers for storage and Donnie wants it to put it in the kitchen instead of at the warehouse at his job collecting dust, we think we'd like to bring it home and use it instead.

That being said, the existing stove is 30" wide. Donnie's stove is 40" wide. There's no way it's going to fit in the hole and there's no way to move the few cabinets around to make space for it in the existing location.

In the end, there's no place to put it except to replace the record player in front of the windows to the carport in which case, the back of the stove will stick up over the glass by about 4".

Here's my thinking on it. Get the new countertops with only the sink hole cut out. Make the whole area by the existing stove into workspace. Make some kind of something to create storage where the stove used to be (we have tools, etc. and can make a cabinet if necessary). Put Donnie's stove in front of the windows and use it until it gives out and in the meantime, be on the look-out for a vintage stove at the right price that will fit in the 30" hole where the drop-in stove used to be. Clear as mud? Donnie said to let him think about it. I think he greatly objects to the stove in front of the windows and while I'm not loving the idea either, I greatly object to the creepy countertops since I'm the one who has to try to keep them clean. Men can be oblivious to some things and sometimes, this even includes Donnie.

So, if your DH loved vintage appliances so purchasing a modern stove was out of the question, would you put the stove in front of the windows, enjoy that you have 2 and a half more uninterrupted feet of countertop-CLEAN countertop, nonetheless, to use until further notice or would you leave things as they are until you could reno the whole place a decade from now?

(BTW, the record player with the lamp on it can go next to the DR door without any trouble, so it can stay in the room.)

Thoughts? Suggestions? Extra Valium?

I am looking at the photo with the stove that is there now.

Suggestions:
I would take off above stove cabinet to the left and base cabinet to the left. Make open shelving on each side of the small above-the-stove cabinet (for collectables), make a small shallow cabinet to the left of the HUGE stove going in to be a tray cabinet that will hold cookie sheets, trays, etc. Then your stove will have a permanent home looking all special and wanted.

Then, under the window, (not knowing the floor layout of the kitchen) I am assuming you will want that lost storage to be 'found' so make a cabinet to serve as an island of sorts on wheels to store all that you need for baking, to be brought over by the stove when needed or left in place, using the same counter top on top, but with no back splash area it would be shorter.

You can have your whole counter top made and the backsplash part be only 1/2" to 1 1/2" tall. This way you get the silicone seal where the two mica-ed pieces are and then leaves room for backsplash later on. Looks less heavy in a kitchen.

Tell Donnie sorry I didn't fit the record player into the fix.

I'm back, oh wait, scoot the new cabinet on wheels next to the existing cabinet and then take it to just where there is room on the end for the record player to stay!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Ruth,

Gosh Bella, I feel your pain. Those cabs are beautiful and the quality shows. Plus the hard work you put in making it all so pretty.

Can you swap the dishwasher into the stove space, bump the far right cab out a bit and add the larger stove in the dishwasher's space? Or an oven added under the window with a small cooktop where the stove is now? Plus then you can look outside while using the new work surface

If it is going to be 10 years (give or take) until you can reno and get the dream kitchen, then do what you need to do NOW to make it functional. Extend the counter under the window and retro-fit as much as you can with a new counter. We've got the original counters in our home and no matter how hard I try, the water damage/steam/dirt down the seams has destroyed it.

who is doing the counter top work Bella, just make sure they use plywood and not particle board so that they will not disintegrate.

I like Mary Ruth's idea of re-jiggering the cabinets on the current stove wall in order to accommodate the vintage stove. You might have to change out the sheet vinyl, too, though, which I know would break your heart...LOL!

Here's the current floorplan furniture included. It's a small room with 5 doors-basically all the places there isn't anything against the wall, there's a door or window.

Give me a few minutes to ponder and come back.

While I don't have a suggestion - your counters make me thankful to have my 1970s ORANGE laminate counters instead of your gold flecked stained, bleached stuff.....

btw - I don't like the idea of the 40in stove in front of the window.....I'd be pondering real hard about trying to make it work where the current stove is...Can you move the cabinet to next to the DW area???

out on a limb,
Good point if she puts the displaced base next to the DW then the one there now can go to the right of it and the doors will work, hinge left and hinge right! Only issue is the window casing and backsplash.

I forgot to mention that one of the things that Donnie does not want to lose is that the table, china, and record player gives you a sense of it being a real room, not just a kitchen. It adds warmth to an otherwise boring space. I think that may be his real objection to the stove in front of the windows. Putting a stove there would make that part of the room feel like part of the kitchen instead of a separate eating area. In his vision for the kitchen, he would like to turn the area where the kitchen is back into a dining alcove complete with the arched entry it used to have, the pieces of which are still in the attic. Of course this was the configuration prior to adding the carport, a door to said carport, a set of double windows, and a door to the basement. The old alcove was probably 6’ wide and if rebuilt wouldn’t allow for freestanding furniture or space to move around a table larger than a bistro set, not the 1920s table with 4 Victorian chairs and a china cabinet. The radio might fit though. I say, take the laundry room for that and let me have the whole room that is the kitchen, as the kitchen. There is, after all, a dining room directly adjacent to the kitchen. Not that we ever really use the kitchen table of the dining room for that matter. They’re just nice to look at.

So, back to the matter at hand:

* I considered moving the dishwasher to where the stove is now, putting the cabinet that used to be where the dishwasher was back where it came from, but the stove would still overhang the window by several inches.

*I thought about moving the sink and the dishwasher to where the existing stove is and putting the stove under the sink window as that window is high enough to accommodate the height of the stove back. Because the sink is at the edge of where the countertop next to it starts, the stove wouldn’t be able to be centered, thus a lot of work and it wouldn't look very nice because it's so much bigger than the window. Could have been stupid looking in front of the double windows with a lot less trouble.

*Can’t make a small bar to put the sink and dishwasher in as there’s not enough room for comfortable passage because the room is pretty small.

*The refrigerator would fit into the space where the stove is, but as it sticks out at least 6 inches beyond the countertop, if you were standing at the sink, you’d be whacking your elbow on it all the time and you wouldn’t be able to get good access to the corner cabinet. If you swapped the position of the cabinets and butted them up to each other therefore putting distance between the fridge and the sink, it would be great, but it would entirely cover the floor vent for the HVAC. Then you might put the stove where the fridge went.

*Of course, the stove wouldn’t fit where the refrigerator is now anyway as the hole is 4” too narrow. There’s a 32” doorless opening to the hall on one side of the fridge hole and the HVAC return with a closet above it (which has medicine cabinet stuff in it since there is no cabinet in the bathroom) on the other side. The wall was added and the simplest way to get the extra 4” is to take them out of the opening to the hall, making it a 28” opening instead. The problem with that is that’s how you get beds, dressers, etc; to the bedrooms and provide the room to angle things into the attic stairs. Can’t move the door opening to the hall down the wall 4” to keep its width because the attic stairs would be about 3” in the way. Yep, it’s a nightmare. Unfortunately, that is where we’d love to put the stove.

So, what does this have to do with a little piece of countertop? Well, probably nothing if the truth comes down to it. It actually has to do with a stove. However, in the event of a reno, these same issues are going to come up and I’ve decided that without additional space, there’s not much that can be done with the configuration. If you had the whole room to use, it might be different, but I haven’t played with that idea since the kitchen is the only place that there’s any of Donnie’s favorite furniture. I’d hate to rob him of that.

MR, I’m still pondering your suggestion about taking out the two cabinets. I’ll have to see if the stove would overhang the floor vent. The stove has tons of storage for the cooking and baking pots, pans and sheets which is why I would like to have it back in the house (well, that and the fact that the oven has numbers on the knob!) I was also thinking about making that area where the record player is into desk height counter space, so it’s possible that something might be done in the order of-sink cabinet, dishwasher, base cabinet, upper cabinet on legs (or a slightly taller toe kick) brought out to base cabinet depth, remaining base cabinet, which might make the line of cabinets appear to be a design intention instead of an after-thought or a rigging. At countertop height it’ll all still be tall enough to run into the skirt of the double window. I’ll have to ponder it and take some measurements. There’s another floor vent next to the door to the carport which will need considering.

When I painted that piece of countertop, Donnie came in and said “that looks great, just paint it all.” Today he followed that up with “next week you can paint the truck”. Maybe I should just slap some sealing paint on the thing and hope a beautiful vintage 30” stove in top condition show up on Craigslist soon!

Any other suggestions besides HAND GRENADE!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: *~Bella~*,

Here have a drink while you wait!

LOL. THANK YOU!

Building codes vary from state to state, but putting a stove in front of the window would violate the building code in my state. The area behind a stove needs to be noncombustible and window frames do not qualify. If you had a grease fire or some other flare up the wall/window frame could easily catch fire. Not good.

To meet code a stove also needs some sort of vent hood above it.

Also, the inside heat of cooking combined with the outside cold on the other side of the window can cause your windows to shatter. Not good.

All in all, placing a stove in front of a window isn't such a great idea, even if code allows it, which it probably doesn't.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but better safe than sorry.

Another vote for Mary Ruth's idea...it's exactly what I was thinking as I read your post. Your whole house is very similar to mine and mine still has the original 1930's cabinets...all on one 10 foot wall, with the fridge and range on an adjacent wall, a dining alcove with an arched opening, a door to the back yard and a door to the dining room. Yours was reno'd, obviously, but it no doubt had a similar set up...the big free standing range as the star on that wall, and probably no other cabinets at all. In my kitchen, the cabinets go all the way to the wall, with space between the range and those cabinets to access them...are you following? What I'm getting at is this...could you take everything off that wall, install the end cabinet to the left of the sink, place that big range alone on the wall and still have space to access the newly placed cabinet? IMO, that would be authentic. My only concern would be whether or not you'd have enough room to pass between the range and fridge as the range is probably deeper than the existing cabinets.

quote:

The area behind a stove needs to be noncombustible and window frames do not qualify.

Anyway if it was a gas stove wouldn't the open window breeze blow the flame out?

Not too sure I understand all the problems as the desires of Donnie kind of confuse the logistics of the fittings.

Anyway what I would suggest on my limited understanding is to put the vintage stove where the other one is, but do not change the upper cupboards. If there is add'l space to be filled, use a lower but narrower base cabinet. Something that bothers me visually that no one has mentioned, is the narrow space between the window and the d.w. (near the record player). Can that be filled in with another narrow base cabinet? Or a facsimile of?

No matter what I would change the counter top, even if that is the only thing to do. Don't wait ten years or even one!

I hesitate to mention this, but I would over rule the DH and get a new stove that fits the space.

At least in my house, I do all the cooking and I would have the final say in this case.

I sort of agree with annon...... I know you want to use Donnie's stove....but why not get a "cheapy" (least expensive) new stove for now and in the decades before you completely remodel, another idea may present itself.

quote:

Originally posted by Annon:
I hesitate to mention this, but I would over rule the DH and get a new stove that fits the space.

At least in my house, I do all the cooking and I would have the final say in this case.

Edited to suggest an over the stove microwave would be nice.

I would do a light colored countertop since the kitchen is so dark

Wow, it took a whole cup of coffee to read this thread!

I like the counter top you picked out.

What I would do is find an appliance repairman to fix the drop in stove. It couldn't be that hard and you can buy new dials so you'll know the oven temperature.

The current stove fits the location and has a certain charm to it.

It would be a whole lot easier than all that moving around, adding on, subtracting, multiplying and higher math.

quote:

Originally posted by *~Bella~*:
So, if your DH loved vintage appliances so purchasing a modern stove was out of the question, would you put the stove in front of the windows, enjoy that you have 2 and a half more uninterrupted feet of countertop-CLEAN countertop, nonetheless, to use until further notice or would you leave things as they are until you could reno the whole place a decade from now?
Thoughts? Suggestions? Extra Valium?

If it was me, I'd try to get the vintage stove into the cabinets that you have.

Put the stove where the current one is. The right side of the old and new would be placed in the same place.

To make up for the extra 10 inches, can you modify 2 of the cabinets?

Since you two are handy, you can cut down the upper left cabinet to make the bottom even with the middle upper cabinet.

Can you move the cabinet that is to the left of the current oven to the right of the dishwasher? To make the upper and lower cabinets end at the same place on the wall near that window.

That may make a gap to the left of the oven. Build open shelves or another cabinet there to fill that gap. I think the upper and lower cabinets should end at the same place on the wall on both the left and the right.

Then...get the counter tops you want and live with that for a dozen or more years. That's what I would do...Plus have a cocktail! Not sure about Valium. :-)

I hope you could follow all of that!

Daciab made me look at your kitchen again. Maybe I am repeating what she said..... How about the cabinet on the left of the stove being moved to the right of the dishwasher (you need a wider cabinet there to even it out). Then put Donnie's stove in and use the cabinet that is now right of the dishwasher, moved over to the left of the stove. You may have to alter the top cabinet above the stove but you guys are so handy....should be a snap.

My head hurts thinking about it and that there's just no easy solution with the stove we want to use. The cabinet to the left of the stove is the same size a the cabinet to the right of the dishwasher do it doesn't solve the problem.

As for the upper cabinets on the dishwasher wall being longer than the lower, I was going to run the countertop on over so the ends would terminate in the same place. I thought I might add some kind of leg to support the lengthened countertop. That's where the trash can goes, so even a frame and a small door might be solve the problem.

Anyway, the solution of the day was to just paint the darned thing while we figure out something that works. At least it will be clean and cleanable. This was a low budget project I was trying to sneak in but it looks like a good solution will be more costly than I can justify given other higher priority projects that require more immediate attention.

So, this is the result of a can of paint that was in the basement. It's BM Weathered Oak. Got a few more coats to put on, but whatever. We do like the darker color than the white or the lighter sample I did at first. It's ain't fabulous, but it'll do for now.

You're going to hate my suggestion but the only way I see to solve the stove problem is to remove the cabinets in that section, both uppers and lowers, and reconfigure the area to fit Donnie's stove. Otherwise you are sort of stuck with what you have. Or you could replace the stove with something the same size to make do until you remodel. Have you looked on craigslist for appliances? That might be a less expensive alternative.

Yeah, I've been trolling Craiglist to see what's out there. Some newer ones out there pretty reasonable, but the cool vintage ones that I like are 40 inchers too. Bummer!

I am NOT good at mock ups. But this is my sad attempt to show a vintage stove in that spot with shelves to the left and the upper cabinet shortened just a bit.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: daciab,