gas stove

I love to cook. It is definitely one of my favorite things to do. Menu planning, grocery shopping, trying new recipes, I love it all. And, like most people who have a passion for cooking, I prefer to use a gas stove. I got used to cooking on one in our old apartment, so when we decided to buy this house, with its old electric stove, we knew replacing it would be one of our first major projects. Now, replacing a gas stove with another gas stove is a simple project, but converting from electric can be quite tricky. Especially when the gas line is nowhere near the desired stove location, as was true in our situation. In spite of all of this, we had faith in our abilities (more like Peter's abilities) and decided to buy a gas stove before we even began the project. We have decided to upgrade our kitchen slowly and the new stove is a major component. To spare you alot of details, most of which I dont really understand, I will just cover the major elements.

Phase 1: The Attic
This phase called for Peter to take quite a few trips into the attic to measure and formulate how many pipes we would need to carry the gas through the attic, down the wall, and into the cabinets. After this and a few trips to Home Depot, he (along with help from his bro--thanks aaron!) installed the pipe line in the attic. Judging from their appearance and general attitude everytime they came down, it was very hot, cramped, and tense up there. See pics of their gear below.

Phase 2: The Cabinets
This included drilling into the back cabinets to get the pipe to the stove location and cutting the countertop. This also called for removing the old cooktop (bye bye brownie) and cutting out the cabinets below it to make room for the oven. There was a wall oven when we moved in, but it was small, so we also removed it and added an electrical outlet to its space to accommodate our microwave. So now, we also have a sort-of built in microwave, space-saving and resourceful if I do say so myself.

old, brown electric cooktop

removing the cooktop and cabinets

empty space, waiting to be filled

Phase 3: The Stove
This was definitely the most exciting phase for me! It included unwrapping the stove and all its goodies :) We then moved it into place and Peter hooked up the gas line and outlet. Then it was the moment of truth. I tried not to be too hasty, so I waited for what seemed like eternity to turn on a burner. It was probably like 2 minutes. Click, click, click...woosh! A flame! (forgive me for my lame attempt at sound effects). It worked. So after a week of hard work and calculating and thinking and praying, we enjoyed our Sunday night ritual. Pancakes. On our new gas stove. It was blissful.

unpacking the stovepancakes on the flame :)

the finished product!

Big props to my man, he was the brains and brawn behind this whole thing.