New stove, fridge, and butcher block

When we bought the Tucson house last year, it didn’t come with a refrigerator. Not only did it not have a refrigerator, it didn’t even have a place in the kitchen for a refrigerator! The previous owners had kept their refrigerator in the family room, until their real estate agent told them to put it in the garage while the house was on the market. LOL, we bought a house with no place for a refrigerator.

We also couldn’t get the refrigerator I wanted due to pandemic shortages. Luckily we happened to still have an old refrigerator that we had taken out of one of the rentals and replaced. That’s how I got stuck for an entire year with an old refrigerator that we hadn’t deemed good enough for our tenants! I didn’t really mind.

I figured it would be temporary, but a year later, my refrigerator of choice is still on backorder. Meanwhile, John made a reasonable place for the refrigerator in the dining room, and even ran water to it for the water and ice dispenser. He was able to install a water line through the wall from the plumbing serving the hot water heater in the hall closet. Clever, I thought.

Another one of the first things I had planned to do was replace the old stove. It worked, but it looked very dorky, with the back sticking up past the countertop. What were they thinking? They should have bought a slide-in style! I wonder what they thought when they got it home and saw it sticking up like that? Were they expecting it, or was it a big disappointment? At least we knew about it when we bought the house. It was plenty obvious.

I didn’t want to buy a new stove until we had a new refrigerator, because I wanted them to match. And we were busy, and the pandemic was limiting our choices. And it’s funny how you get to not noticing these things after awhile.

A year passed. Finally I was like, forget my dream refrigerator that’s been out of stock for over a year. I’m just going to replace the dorky stove and the ancient refrigerator with something in stock at Home Depot.

Meanwhile, our countertop tile was in bad shape. We planned to completely remodel the kitchen, but we figured it might be awhile yet. Last year John bought a butcher block to cover up the worst of the tile. He had it cut to size and he set it on the counter.

He intended to install it, but it was stable sitting there, and installation was never our priority. The only minor issue is it blocked the electrical outlet behind it.

We used it that way for almost a year! It worked.

When I decided it really was time to get a new stove and refrigerator, John decided that while the stove was pulled out, he might as well install the butcher block. I was somewhat dubious, because we are actually going to remodel the kitchen – potentially fairly soon. At which point we will get all new countertops. The butcher block is just temporary. Was it worth installing it, temporarily, when it was fine just sitting there? John thought so.

First he removed the tile countertop.

The block is thicker than the tile, so he had to cut the top of the cabinet down a bit to get the block to sit at the correct height. Uh-oh, the circular saw is smoking! Yep, he set the fire alarm off.

He had to finish by hand, with all the doors and windows open to clear the smoke out.

Yay, the stove’s in! With a nice butcher block installed on the left.

Next, the new refrigerator. John had to take the refrigerator doors off to get it into the house.

He worked past bedtime, getting it hooked up and the doors back on. He was trying to get it done because the next morning he was due to leave to go back to work in Albuquerque. I went to bed before he finished. When I got up the next morning and went to the kitchen to get my coffee, I saw this:

OMG, hilarious. There were two refrigerators in my dining room, side by side at right angles to each other. They were both plugged in and humming happily. If one is good, two is better?

I didn’t want to be ungrateful. But I had to ask, “Uh, is it going to stay that way? The whole week you’re in Albuquerque?” Yep, he figured he could move the old one into the garage when he got back, after I transferred the contents sometime during the upcoming week. A week like that. Bummer! A large part of remodeling is patience.

But he agreed to move the old refrigerator into the garage before leaving for Albuquerque if I transferred the contents right away. You mean before I even have my first cup of coffee? Oh the trials of remodeling! But yeah, ok, absolutely. Let’s do it.

We got it done and he was on his way in plenty of time. Yay!

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