STOP! One thing at a time!

The new flooring has officially been put on hold. I'm very sad, but our money needs to be spent elsewhere right now... A couple days ago our range started making some funky smells, it's gotten progressively worse every time we used it until we made the call that it's no longer safe to use. So now we need a new stove. But that's not all! My type A personality won't allow different colour appliances and if I can help it I won't even have different brands. Soooo wellllll... we are getting new appliances!

I'm crazy excited about this because when we bought this house the appliances were included. Which saved us money at the time, yes. But I was upset that I wasn't going to be able to choose my dream appliances, so boo. I have successfully lived with mismatching appliances (at least they're all white) for 1.5 years... and I didn't die! However, I did complain on a nearly daily basis about wanting new ones.

So. We have a wonderful local company that sells furniture, appliances, and electronics called Teppermans which has great deals - and we fell right on one of the biggest sales they have this year! We took about 2 hours to go through all the appliances and see what we liked. Look, feel, functions, and cohesiveness all came into play in our decision and I think we made the best call we could.

Before I show you what we decided on, I'll go through some thoughts and observations we had while searching...

1. We originally wanted GE appliances for the slate finish. It's a nice earthy colour, goes with everything, and doesn't show finger prints. I love the look...

Since we are doing a modern farmhouse style with white cabinets and black handles and faucet I thought this would be our best option. Here's a few farmhouse kitchens with the look;

I was really disappointed when I saw this in store.

The outside is gorgeous, but once I opened the fridge it lacked a quality feel. It also didn't have many bells and whistles which I was really surprised about. So it ended up being a deal breaker.

2. We also prefer a counter depth fridge which is really hard to find for a decent price as it turns out. We don't NEED counter depth, but in our u-shape kitchen it would really help to open up the space. We ended up feeling like we were going to give it up while we were looking because most of the counter depth fridges were astronomically more money.

3. Whirlpool looks great, but there was virtually no space in the ranges. What? Why would you do that? The warming drawer on the bottom is huge but the actual size of the stove was tragic. I didn't want to pay money for a look and not be able to bake a turkey with a side if I wanted to. Huge disappointment since Whirlpool was one of my top brands going into this.

4. Samsung. I kept coming back to it because of the quality feel of their appliances. The interior drawers were smooth, and the ranges have the biggest space - hands down. That's what we went with!

There were plenty of choices we had to make just in Samsung. We must've spent another 30 minutes figuring out which pieces would work for us. I'm sure someone had a laugh just watching me walk around in circles trying to piece my kitchen together in my mind!

So here's our breakdown;

Fridge: 

This fridge is COUNTER-DEPTH!!! We were excited to find a counter depth fridge for a good price with all the things we wanted. 

We honestly could've done without the water and ice in the door, but we already have the hook-ups in our current fridge, so why not. ALSO, in Samsung you cannot get a fridge without the water and ice that includes a large deli drawer... and believe me, I need the deli drawer. Here's what I'm talking about;

You all know that drawer. The tiny one that usually holds cheese, meat, etc.

This is the full-width of the fridge which is so awesome since I always tend to over-load the drawer with all the cheese I buy!

Only thing I feel like I need to mention; Samsung stainless steel is not magnetic. So no magnets on the front, but we like a clean fridge anyway so it works for us. Also, we have at least 1/2 of each side available so we can use that if necessary.

Range:

There's something about the Samsung knobs that feel solid and of quality. And my mother has had a Samsung range for a few years now, and she showed me that you can pull them right off the face to clean behind them which is a wonderful feature when pasta sauce is a staple!

We went with this range for a few reasons. 1. It doesn't have wifi, why is that necessary? I don't need to pay for something that I will literally never use. 2. The quality feel. 3. You can use the convection or not. 4. The space it has. 5. The back plate under the knobs is black, not stainless. The stainless looked cheap and also would be a real pain to clean!

Dishwasher:

This is a bit of a story. We wanted to go with a dishwasher that was $300 cheaper, but after staring at it and this one for a little bit, I knew that I would regret buying a cheaper one. The cheaper one had a plastic top with face mounted controls and looked out of place with the rest of the set so I had to change.

A few cool things about this dishwasher; 1. It has a third rack up top that's perfect for cooking utensils! 2. There are two completely independent utensil baskets. 3. The prongs on the back of the lower tray can be folded down to allow for large pans, which is going to be a lifesaver when hosting!

Microwave:

We got an over the range microwave since that's what we already have, and it really just makes sense space-wise. This one has a rack on the inside to allow for more cooking options which will come in handy. It also has  4 fan speeds which is great when you have the baby's room close to the kitchen. The presets are well thought out and there is a +30 seconds button which is very useful (we use it on our current one on a daily basis).

So there you have it! 

We will be getting our stove and microwave this week but Samsung had a stock issue so we're waiting on the fridge and the dishwasher - hopefully only 2 or 3 weeks for those!

In the meantime I am starting to tackle the kitchen cabinet painting. I am planning to do a cabinet or two / day, so hopefully it won't take too long! Updates to the kitchen are coming, stay tuned!