Friday, December 9, 2011

The Stove Hood Saga

It has been over a year since I began my search for a new stove hood for our kitchen. The one we had  was original to the house. It was white and all the other appliances were black. At one time the stove had a stainless steel top. I once used Greased Lightning to clean it and went on to clean the stove hood with it also. Big mistake. It clearly says on the label not to use it on painted surfaces. Well... it blistered the white paint on the stove hood. From there, it got really ugly as the metal began to rust. 



The difficulty was that I did not want halogen lights, which put out enough heat to burn your hand on the hood; in Florida, heat is the enemy.  It needed to be 30" wide and black. I wanted the underneath to be fairly flat making it more cleanable than the open model that we had. Oh, and I did not want to pay a fortune for it. I looked locally, first, and eventually, online but I could not find what I wanted.  

Last December 23rd, my mother presented me with a check marked "stove hood," for our Christmas gift. When she gave it to me, I said, "Why not wait until tomorrow night, Christmas Eve?" which is when we traditionally open gifts. She was adamant. She had her fatal stroke at 11:11 the next morning.

That check was probably the last thing she wrote. It was months before I could do anything with it. Eventually, I photocopied it and deposited the check in our bank account.

On Veteran's Day, B and I went to a local appliance store and made our request. The clerk was a little taken aback but he went to their sources and finally came up with only two that met the criteria. We selected one and it was here the following week. 

This past weekend, B installed it -----and it was a bear to work with! It involved work in the attic as well as in the kitchen.






But it looks wonderful, works well (and quietly) and has compact fluorescent bulbs.

Thank you, B!
And thank you, Mama!

1 comment:

S N B said...

I have just realized the last shot shows B literally "home on the range!"