So tonight Denis and I took frozen pizzas over to have dinner with Uncle Beau and the kids in the empty new house. Denis bought the pizzas and a small baking sheet. Turned on the oven and realized IT’S ELECTRIC. Now that’s not horrible in itself, but we just kind of presumed it was gas since the gas stove is RIGHT NEXT to the two wall ovens. Yes we looked inside the oven, but other than noticing it was a bit small we just didn’t notice that it was electric. That’s our own fault.
But once the oven was warmed up to cook the pizzas – the BAKING SHEET WOULDN’T FIT. And this wasn’t a big baking sheet, it was a tiny baking sheet. I think the inside of the ovens are MAYBE 20″ wide. It’s insane. Denis is understandably NOT happy at all and we’re both upset with ourselves that we just didn’t SEE it.
Fortunately we have some extra money from closing that we can use, as well as a generous gift from my parents via my grandfather’s estate. After much analysis of the whole kitchen tonight we’ve decided to take out the in-counter gas stovetop and the lower cabinets and put in an actual stove/oven unit. Denis saw one online at Home Depot and plans on going tomorrow afternoon to see it in person and inquire about installation issues and timeframes. We’ll leave the electric wallovens in place until next summer at which point we’ll rip them out and replace them with cabinets and a microwave space (since we don’t have a microwave space and will just have it sitting on the counter for now).
We’re both so dejected. You would think we would notice that during our initial walkthrough this summer. But we honestly didn’t. And like I said, we knew the ovens were small, but we didn’t think they were THAT small.
It makes me wonder what else we didn’t see. We also didn’t see that no rooms have overhead lights – they all require lamps plugged in to particular outlets. Which is SO stupid and we will NOT be doing in the house we build in the future. ALL ROOMS WILL HAVE OVERHEAD LIGHTS. Let it be proclaimed in all the land.
In other news, I HATE the new DirecTV DVR – I wish it was Tivo, not DirecTV’s program. It sucks compared to my Tivo. Thank goodness I have my two original Tivo boxes, which is where the bulk of my programming is going to take place, I think.
That’s a bummer and you have to wonder how the previous owners prepared meals. I guess they didn’t have Thanksgiving or Christmas feasts at their house.
Thanks for hosting Beau for the past few days. We really appreciate it!
Well, thinking more on it this morning and also chatting with several home-building pros that I know online, I’m convinced that we should live in the house for a few weeks before decided on what we want to do. We may be able to just get new wall ovens that have a bigger interior, which would be the EASIEST fix.
I would think so. I mean they look like normal size oven until you open them, right? That might mean that they’re a standard size for the hole in the cabinetry. Much easier to fix. Still odd that the homeowners didn’t change them initially anyway.
The majority of the newer houses (less than 15 years old) in the Carolinas use gas to heat the house and hot water. Ranges, ovens, and dryers tend be electric. (Denis will realize this when he gets into his real estate business.) It’s not like the electric ovens are powered with a 60 watt light bulb- you can make an real meal with them.
We have approximately 18″ double wall ovens (circa 70s) that we have been living with since buying the house 8 years ago. I bought 1/2 sheet pans once and had to return them. And a Costco pizza doesn’t fit inside. But, I will say that other than that, we *have* hosted Thanksgiving dinner for 8 people just fine, and we permanently keep a pizza stone in the lower oven. Because they are smaller, they actually take less power to preheat, though the fact that they are so old probably means they are already inefficient. So, I guess what I’m saying is, do give it some time if you can. Ours were a disappointment at first, but not terribly difficult to get used to. I’d rather have the two smaller width ovens than one larger one.