Adding a hood microwave, part 2.

Once we got that beaut home, it was planning time. See, our current setup didn't have room for a hood microwave. It had a standard hood at a good height, but putting in a microwave would have made it rather awkward to get to anything on the back burner of the stove.

So in order to make it fit that cabinet over the hood had to go. Luckily the venting to the outside was way at the top of it so we had room to work. I figured if John could retrofit some cabinet doors, so could Clint.

First step, demo.

The worst part was removing the tile back splash. It went up so far that we had to remove a couple rows to get the microwave flush against that wall.
You know how on all the home improvement shows, they just tap the sides of the tile and they all pop out? Well holy mother that did not happen for us. That tile was stuck on their for the long haul. I ended up having to just rip out the cement board it was attached to. Not fun.

We also removed the doors and bottom of the cabinet and we were on the way.

 

 

 

Poor Clint was up until 4am installing a new piece of drywall and a new bottom for the cabinet. That boy won't give up until he's done. He was so proud he even took a picture (even though I would wake up and see it 3 hours later.)

 

 

A new electrical outlet and some wall brackets later, the microwave was in! (Clint just loves the way I take hours and hours of frustrating work and condense it into one sentence, lol)

 

 

Just like John did, Clint was able to cut out a chunk of the doors to shrink them down for re mounting. Now you would never know it wasn't originally built this way!

 

FUN FACT: I forgot to take pictures of the completed doors before we started on the next big kitchen project. So, I can't show a completed picture with the new doors. Oopsie!

 

It's cool, I will write up the post(s) about the next project and get those up for the entire kitchen reveal!

 

 

 

 

 

 







Adding a hood microwave, part 1.

We have been talking about adding a hood microwave for forever. We always knew we wanted to, but were waiting for the fateful day when the beast of a microwave/toaster combo we have nuked its last meal.

I bought that thing right after I moved into my first place. It was my pride and joy.

So, since my idols John & Sherry always talk about how amazing the Habitat for Humanity ReStore is, I had been itching to go and check ours out. One day on a random errand/shopping trip we decided to stop by. It wasn't looking to hot. A lot of doors and old junk. I was feeling rather bummed about it until I hear the Mr calling my name from across the warehouse.

Side note here: Clint is an amazing shopper. Maybe I just go too fast or can't focus well enough, but he can always seem to find the most awesome things hidden behind something or tucked into a corner of a shelf that I had just looked right over. Yay for that.

Anywho, I walk over and low and behold there he is standing in front of a black hood microwave. We prefer black appliances over stainless. I was skeptical but excited. We looked it all over, busted out our phones to look up the model and dragged over an extension cord to test it out. It seemed far to good to be true. I figure its gonna be crazy expensive. The new ones were listed for $800, I was sure I was gonna be giving him the big Hell No.

Clint covers the price tag with his hand and tells me to guess. I was being optimistic and said $250. He smiles and moves his hand.
 I look at it.
Figure it must be wrong.
It says $30.
That's not a typo.
Thirty.

Just to be sure there are even a couple other similar ones, same price.

I about danced my way to the register and bought that puppy. I figure even if it only lasts a year we more than got our moneys worth.



It was a good trip. Now for the real fun- installation!