3 Thrifting: Appliance Edition

Like I mentioned yesterday, our main objective for the first floor is do and get everything on the cheap. So we turned to our friend Mr. Craigslist and Saturday morning garage sales to find our appliances. We figured we would purchase used appliances to hold us over until we save the money to gut our kitchen entirely. Faire day.

The previous owners graciously left behind this beauty:

And I failed to take a photo of the stove they left behind but it was similar to this:

Source

Just add a lot of stains and general abuse and you would have had our stove.

Now we’re totally on board to use whacha got train, but both appliances just weren’t cutting it. The stove had a gas leak and was so caked with dirt that we figured we just weren’t up for the challenges. We were considering restoring the stove for a retro themed kitchen in our garage someday but after putting in some research, the cost and time benefit fell short. Sadly she ended up scrapped out for cash because we needed space in the garage to store my car for the winter. Still makes me sad we got rid of her.

The refrigerator was also equally dirty and needed a small part to keep the temperature steady. Again we decided it wasn’t worth our time and tried our shot at Craigslisting it. We hit gold, someone was interested in a second fridge for an apartment unit and sold it for $75, score!

So with the fridge and stove gone, we needed something to cook and store all of our food. We scoured craigslist and found only a few gas stoves all over $500. One weekend while garage saling, we saw a sign for a gas stove for $350. It was at another location so we thought we’d check it out. Come to find it was a great fit, and it was in great condition. Granted it was an off white/ivory color.

This was our craigslist ad, cell pic quality.

The previous owners had mentioned they took it out of their cabin and hadn’t used it since. Shortly after we brought it home we tested it and found it odd that the flame wasn’t very large even on high. The flame wasn’t even high enough to boil water. After a bit of research we found out the stove was propane as opposed to gas. Whop Whop, guess we should have known since it was taken from a cabin which are generally propane in our state. We could have paid another $100+ to convert to gas, instead we decided to resell on Craigslist. It sold for $325 so we only lost $25 trying to make it work for our house. So we were stove-less.

Shortly after our stove purchase (and before we knew it wouldn’t work), we found this beauty on craigslist. Good thing because we may have sworn off craigslist for a few months.

Since the stove was off white/ivory, we tried to match the ‘larger’ appliances as best we could. When the boyfriend went to look at it, he talked the seller down from $150 to $110 saving us $40 because it was dirty and had some scratches. So taking the loss of $25 from the stove into account, we weren’t down so much.  After the stove failure we were a bit bummed about the stove that we worried about the fridge. I’m happy to report she’s still kicking.

After discussing fridges, we found that we both grew up with a top and bottom fridge and our move to side by side was a surprising success. We fell in love and now when we’re ready to purchase nice shiny and new pieces, we’ll know exactly what we’re looking for. The one downside to the side by side was that a standard pizza cannot fit horizontally, rather at an angle. So we’ll take that into account when we make our next purchase as well. Nothing our extra freezer (which we scored free for helping his parents move) can’t handle.

You may wonder how we cope without a stove and the answer is these two:

The silver one is an electric skillet, and the old school is an electric skillet we are borrowing from my dad. I must say free is good. My boyfriend’s parents got him the oven for his birthday (since we were using a pizza oven instead). We’re extremely happy with our combination and haven’t found the need to go out and buy another stove as of yet. Although we do have a stove notification on our craigslist in case a gas one pops up for the right price.  Call us a little burned (pun intended) but we’re content with our decision. Plus it’s a huge space saver. When we had the stove in our kitchen it made the entire room feel smaller.

We are considering a small tabletop burner; you know the kind used in tiny NYC apartments? Something like this:

Source

So we can finally return the electric skillet. $40 isn’t such a bad price. Who knows where we’ll end up.

After the stove was removed, one may think it looks as though we have a miss-matched appliance design, but it actually plays really well in our kitchen. It may seem as though the refrigerator may stand out but I have plans to bring in curtains that will really tie it in nicely. The electric skillet is tucked away in a drawer when not in use and the oven and microwave play well together. Coincidentally I have a microwave that matches the stove even better, but it’s in storage.

What are your thoughts on miss-matched appliances in general? Does it drive you nuts? Do you try to match them in a unique way?

Want to follow along with the Kitchen progression? Here’s the Prepping for paint, Painting Part 1, Repairing Drywall, Painting Part 2,  Hardware Decisions, and the Floor.