A note for context: this is my first post resuming the remodel story where I left off back in 2017, after quickly becoming overwhelmed with working full time, traveling, and managing contractors. While I’m writing this in April 2021, what’s described in it actually happened in early 2018.
Having the kitchen fully gutted made doing measurements for the kitchen layout much easier, but I first needed to sort out the appliance situation. As mentioned in an earlier post, one of the most significant challenges in this space was the fact that the wall where the refrigerator goes is adjacent to the walk-in laundry room entrance and only 24 inches deep. I genuinely cannot figure out why this particular floor plan was designed this way, as appliances in the 1980s were huge. By putting the refrigerator on the back wall next to the laundry room entryway, it covered half of the opening – which had a bi-fold door on it – so you had a very tiny amount of space to squeeze through. It also looked ridiculous.
I’m no architect, but I considered many different ways to redesign the footprint of this space to be more functional and none of them were reasonable. Here’s a thing to know if you’re working on a townhome with common walls on either side: between each unit, there are solid concrete firebreak walls for safety and noise reduction. This means that most likely none of the major blackline (sewer) or vent pipes are in the exterior walls unless they were specially framed to accommodate it. In my case, if an interior wall seemed like a stupid placement, I eventually discovered that its because it was concealing plumbing of some kind.
Anyway – the refrigerator wasn’t moving out of that corner by the laundry door, so the size of it would determine the space for everything else on that wall. The best I was hoping to do was a counter-depth refrigerator, which would still cut into the door opening, but only by a few inches. Yet as it turns out, there are places in the world (Europe) in which people live in spaces designed hundreds of years ago and manufacturers have adapted to this reality with modern space-saving appliances. You guys, Bosch makes a refrigerator that is 24” x 24” and 78” tall. THANK. GOD. It’s about 11 cubic feet and has a bottom freezer with an ice maker – completely functional for my needs. In the photos below, you’ll see it in the space before anything else was built around it. It looks weird. Because it’s Bosch, and because it’s a specialty size in the U.S., it was expensive at retail, but after some additional digging I found one on an overstock appliance site and bought it immediately. This was a major win as the width of the fridge was much less than I was originally thinking it would be, meaning I would be able to get a pantry cabinet to the right of it. (To be clear: there are several other manufacturers, including Samsung, Liebherr, Summit, and GE that make a similar euro-style refrigerator, but Bosch I found to be more common and easier to find on overstock sites – plus they’re also known for good quality.)
The dishwasher is located to the right of the sink, where it needed to stay. Dishwashers are a standard size so that was mostly a non-issue in space measurements, although stay tuned for a fairly significant detour on this front. That meant the only other variable pieces were the range and the microwave.
At first, I was set on the idea of an under-counter oven and separate cooktop, only because I felt it was a cleaner, more integrated look than a range. It turns out this is super expensive – you would think that the two individual pieces would be roughly equivalent to the cost of a range, but they’re not. The contractor I was working with at the time also reminded me that both pieces would need 220V outlets and that would be pushing it without upgrading my electrical panel. That idea was off the table pretty quickly.
The apartment I moved from had a gas cooktop, which I loved, but running a gas line into this unit sadly wasn’t realistic. And so I once again looked back to Europe, where almost everyone cooks on induction. The technology uses magnets to heat the metal pot instead of an electric coil that heats the surface. It’s a super precise, fast method and I’m not sure why it hasn’t caught on in the U.S. All of the major appliance companies make at least one induction range with a convection oven, but Bosch has been making them the longest and is the most highly rated so that ended up being the deciding factor in which one I chose. I also found one of these on an overstock site, although it was still about twice as expensive as a standard electric range.
Finally, I really didn’t want a microwave over the range. I hardly ever use one while cooking, and I don’t like the way it looks. At this stage, my plan was to place it under the counter as a built-in at the end of the peninsula. I’m sure you’re getting the hint that what I planned and what actually happened are two different things.
In the next episode: the painful process of purchasing cabinets, where the microwave ended up, and we find out where I made mistakes measuring.
