The New Stove & Vent Hood are Installed !

Kat & I moved into my current home in mid-September of 1992. The house came with refrigerator, dishwasher, stove and vented stove hood. The stove & vent hood were installed when the house was new, so after 26 years it little wonder they were more than ready for the local trash center. I'd been keeping a weather eye out for a good deal on a glass top electric stove (gas stoves are nicer but installing a tank here at the house is complicated & costly). Sunday last I stopped at Best Buy on the way home from church & what do you know, there sat my stove. A nice midline Frigidaire on sale for half price due to some dents in both side panels and a matching vent hood for less than half price. Monday about noon my little red truck & I went and got me a stove & hood. Getting it up the steps of my house & into the kitchen was a bit of a struggle but I got it there then headed off for work.

Today I got the old stove and hood removed and out of the kitchen. The stove was easy enough, but the hood was a nightmare. The installer seemed to think a light weight aluminum stove hood needed 8 mounting screws and lots of glue to keep it in place. A couple of the screws broke off so after the rest were out I had to wiggle the hood over the broken screws & then remove the screw stubs. Plus the inside of the old hood had at least 3 different kinds of abandoned wasps nests inside its fan and vent pipe. Of course the wall & floor area behind the old units needed serious scrubbing. Lots of serious scrubbing. The kitchen cabinets are recessed on the bottom so the hood needed spacer blocks. I had wood for that but couldn't get at things to screw the spacers in place. Elmer's Woodworking glue to the rescue ! Then I needed to chisel out a notch for the hood power line, the cord port is in a slightly different spot on this hood and the hood wouldn't fit flush to the wall & cabinets without a notch. At this point I discovered I needed about 4 drywall mollies. Well I wanted to put a wall shield between the hood and the top of the stove anyway so Hi Ho Hi Ho Its Off to Lowes I Go ! Took forever to find what I wanted at Ruckersville's new Lowes, its a bit smaller than the Charlottesville store & organized a bit differently. Came home with dry wall mollies & a nice stainless wall shield. Got the shield up with a bit of tweeking here and there to get it flat & screwed down in the lower left corner were it butts up to the counter. Got the old power cord hooked up to the new stove but had no stress relief bracket. Enter American ingenuity - adapted a hose repair clamp to work as a stress relief bracket. Got out my level, leveled the stove, & flipped the breaker. Drum roll please, everything seems to be working just fine. Set the clock & boiled some water for tea.