Time out for a quick kitchen project

Sunday April 10 and Monday April 11:

Chris helped me muscle the oven into the family room.
To actually install it, I am going to try using an engine-
hoist that I bought a few years ago to lift a fountain.

I took a break from the tea room to deal with this 320-pound behemoth that has been sitting in our family room for more than a week. It's a Bosch double-oven that will replace our 20-year-old Caloric.

Most ovens are 30" wide, but in our house nothing is quite standard.  The Caloric was 27," so we bought the 27" Bosch.

We knew this oven was taller, meaning we'd have to lose the bottom drawer as I built a taller opening.   What we didn't know is that this unit was 1/2" too wide to fit into the hole.

Therefore, double the work.

To make the opening wider, I had to rip out the cheap, particle-board interior sides of the cabinet. But it's kind of like IKEA furniture – once you start taking big pieces off, everything starts falling apart.  So I had to shore up the cabinet (and upper shelves) with wood as I progressed.



The new Bosch requires electrical connections at the top – so I had to cut into the sheetrock at the back of the cabinet and move the outlet box higher up the wall.  Then patch up the drywall.



Once the interior particle board was removed, I still needed to gain 1/2" of width across the front opening. I used my circular saw to take 1/4" off each side of the oak frame.

This is new, heavy framing to support the 320-pound Bosch. I ripped out the old particle-board shelf that supported the Caloric and built this wood frame for a new shelf that is about 4" lower. The new frame is supported all the way to the slab. 

Once a drawer, now a stationary face-plate.  I disassembled the drawer and cut about 3" off the bottom of the oak face. Once all the holes are filled and sanded, I will use a whitewash-oak stain to try to match everything up.



3/4" plywood topping forms new, strong platform.





Relocated electrical box for Bosch top-connection.



Once this is sanded, I will attempt to recreate the whitewash oil finish by blending white gloss enamel with a cherry stain. It will be trial-and-error to get a good match.

UPDATES:

Thursday, April 14:  I sanded off the wood filler and made a pink-looking whitewash rub out of 1 part cherry stain, 4 parts white gloss enamel.




I rubbed the mixture over the oak with a soft cotton cloth.  It came out slightly brighter than the existing cabinets, but after arguing about it for awhile with Anne, she assured me that it won't be long before we're replacing all these cabinets anyway.

More likely, we would re-face, not replace.  And/or . . . paint them all white and add new doors. It all depends on how long we keep this house.  I also am confident that the oils in this new stain will yellow over time and blend in with the existing cabinets.



This opening is now ready for the oven.

Sunday, April 17: I hauled a 2-ton engine hoist into the house. I bought this crane a few years ago when I was moving an 800-pound fountain to a new location in the backyard.

Because of the leg-extensions on the hoist, I could only get the oven this close to the cabinet opening. The solution was to jury-rig a wood platform to slide it onto.   It could then sit on the platform while I made the electrical connections in the back.



I wrapped several chains around the oven and lifted it. Here, I have lowered it onto the temporary platform. Then I just used muscle to get it close to the opening.



The makeshift platform consisted of some 2x4s propped onto the legs of the engine hoist. I screwed them together and then screwed some scraps of plywood onto the top.  At the far end, I propped them up with some 4x4 scraps.  With the oven sitting on this platform, I crawled back into the opening and connected the wires.

Once the wiring was done, I muscled the oven into the opening.

My makeshift installation platform.

Above and below: The finished installation, a project that involved carpentry, electrical, painting, sanding, drywall and a bit of cussing. I don't know what the labor would have cost, but I'm pleased with the way it came out.

However . . .  Anne is so pleased with it, that I am now told we must get a new, stainless steel "counter-depth" refrigerator.  The old white beater looks awful, just awful. The more compelling reason, though, is that it's about 12 years old and probably uses at least twice the energy that a new one would.