MelissaH's Kitchen (Renovation) Dreams

[Lori in PA]

Thank you very much for the follow-up report -- this is so valuable because, while it's nice to hear about your choices as you are making them, it's more helpful to know how they are playing out in day to day use.

[memesuze]

The range: best choice we could have made.

Remind us again of what you have?

[MelissaH]

The range is a 36-inch GE Monogram dual-fuel. We opted for six burners, since we wanted the flexibility of being able to put either a griddle or a grill pan on two of the burners when we wanted to do so...or to just leave them available as burners.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Over Thanksgiving, we did a fair amount of cooking at my in-laws' house. And although we had a good holiday, it made me very thankful for my own kitchen. Among the things I've gotten used to, very quickly:

• A large sink basin, big enough to hold anything we own
  
• Lots and lots of counter space
  
• Somewhere to clamp a pasta machine, since we made ravioli
  
• A floor that's easy to keep clean
  
• Landing space on both sides of the range
  
• Six gas burners, since we had three electric burners going concurrently and it got just a little cozy at times
  
• Electrical outlets galore
  
• Knowing where everything is!
  

I believe we accomplished our goals in our reno: making a kitchen that multiple people could work in at the same time, fits our cooking style and our lifestyle, reflects our personality, and in general makes us happy. It's spoiled us. We still have some minor cosmetic details, such as painting around the side doorway, but that will come in good time.

Having said that, I'm off to cook dinner. Tonight's offering: spaghetti squash, baked and scraped out, with tomato sauce.

MelissaH

[Lori in PA]

Remind me about your flooring -- I always want to hear about "easy to keep clean."

[MelissaH]

Remind me about your flooring -- I always want to hear about "easy to keep clean."

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Marmoleum Click. Did fine with our minor flood, even.

MelissaH

[kiliki]

I'd be embarrased to admit how infrequently we mop our marmoleum floor. Even wet dog paw prints blend right in and it never looks dirty. Dirt does mop up very easily when I do break down and mop.

[kitchenmage]

I just wandered through this because I'm making some minor tweaks in my kitchen and need to replace my dishwasher and thus am considering countertops and I don't have the baking area quite right yet and I need more small shelves above the counters and the light sucks and...oh crud, did i say minor tweaks? what was i thinking?

a playlist with everything potentially offensive edited out (such as the Avenue Q soundtrack and a couple of Uncle Bonsai and DaVinci's Notebook tracks revolving around body parts) for general occasions with guests;

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anyway, what i wanted to say is that the really embarrassing part of the unedited playlists is when the school calls you because your five year-old is singing "Penis Envy"** (and teaching other kids the words!) at recess. When theKid was ~18 she stood up at a UB concert and recounted this story, much to the band's delight.

**for tie-in to food, call Bourdain

[MelissaH]

anyway, what i wanted to say is that the really embarrassing part of the unedited playlists is when the school calls you because your five year-old is singing "Penis Envy"** (and teaching other kids the words!) at recess.    When theKid was ~18 she stood up at a UB concert and recounted this story, much to the band's delight.

**for tie-in to food, call Bourdain

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Yup, that's one of the songs not on my "safe listening" list.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

We've recently discovered another little minor tweak we should have made to the kitchen. This one may or may not be fixable.

For my husband's birthday, I got him an Aerogarden. We have a hard time finding fresh herbs in the stores here sometimes, particularly cilantro and dill. Our windows don't have sills, and the kitchen faces north anyway so we don't get a whole lot of light. And plants in pots don't seem to do well around here, because either they get underwatered or overwatered or chewed by the cats. Largely because of the cats and their propensity to knock things over, I wanted to avoid pots with dirt. Therefore, a self-contained system like the Aerogarden seemed to make sense.

And in the kitchen, we had exactly one place it could go: at the end of the counter on the same side as the sink, basically just over the cat feeding station. The Aerogarden's too tall to fit under the wall cabinets, and this is the one place we don't have wall cabinets. (Except the overhang area, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my pasta machine clamping zone. Especially since he gave me the Charcuterie book for Hanukkah, and I now have my eyes on a sausage stuffer, which will also need a clamping zone!)

The potential fix: remember those horizontal cabinets? Where we had a choice of whether to mount them flush with the bottom or with the top of the other wall cabinets? Well, we'd decided to put them flush with the bottom, so we could use the top as storage for pretty but seldom-used stuff. We put a full-length side panel over, all the way up to the ceiling, and then ran under-cabinet lights along the bottom of the whole set, all the way to the sink. If we moved the horizontal cabinets up to be top-flush, we'd gain back another foot or so of under-cabinet space, which would then give us a place for the Aerogarden.

But I'm not sure that would be a good idea. For one thing, I'd hate to lose the lighting there. And for another thing, the cabinets are high enough that I can't reach the top shelf of the bottom cabinet without a stepstool as it is. And I like having the small display area on top. So I think we'll leave it as-is...and see if the cats get into too much trouble. The Aerogarden just might be a good enough deterrent to jumping up on the counter that we won't find our chives nibbled down to nothing.

MelissaH

[prasantrin]

Did you ever mention which Ikea cabinets you chose? I browsed through, but only saw mention of Ikea, not the specific ones. I'm helping my mother choose kitchen cabinets, so it's between yours and C. sapidus' if we go with Ikea!

[MelissaH]

We went with the Akurum system, Adel birch doors with birch look insides. The horizontal cabinets are also Adel birch, with the glass insets.

So far, they've been great.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

We've now been through an entire winter with the kitchen. (Even though it's not yet the Fourth of July, I hereby declare winter over in Oswego! ) Nine month assessment:

The kitchen has been fabulous. Everyone we've had over envies our stove. We did the first self-cleaning of the oven on a cold and rainy day, and realized once we were in too far to stop the cycle that we really should have waited for a nice day when we could have the windows open.

After the self-clean cycle, I noticed that the racks didn't slide as well as they used to. Other people have also noted this happening. I e-mailed the Monogram customer service, and this is what they said:

I'm sorry you are experiencing this issue.  After cleaning, your oven shelves may become so clean that they do not slide easily. To make the shelves slide more easily, after each cleaning, dampen your fingers with a small amount of cooking oil. Rub the oil lightly over the sides of the shelves where they come in contact with the shelf supports.

I haven't tried this yet, but I'd be inclined to use mineral oil rather than cooking oil, since we keep it around for the butcher block countertops (read on...) and because I won't have to worry about a rancid oven that way.

Earlier this month, we were finally in a Container Store, and purchased an Elfa unit to hang on the pantry closet door and give us more storage there. We're still trying to figure out how to organize things best.

We've rearranged a few more things. We vacillate whether the napkins should be in the second or third drawer down. We finally put the "good" china into one of our corner cabinets. I've moved things around my baking section. My ruler mysteriously vanished, and I should probably just get a new metal one that's easier to find than the clear plastic one I used to use. We still haven't settled on a final resting place for the kitchen towels.

We've also had to relocate the cat treats from the pull-out below the microwave, where the cat food lives, into a completely closable drawer. Lyon finally figured out that the Pounce treat bags are much easier to tear into than the old canisters used to be. I think we need to find some kind of sealable container, so they can stay with the rest of the food.

And about the countertops: I think I know why people typically use butcher block for an island, not their main countertops against walls. Over the winter, despite oiling, it shrinks. And as it shrinks, the caulk and grout etc. between the butcher block and the wall cracks and falls out. This is obviously less than ideal. If we could find some cheap inch-thick stone to use for a backsplash, this would also solve the problem for us, because the thickness of the stone would then hide the gap. But other than that, I love how the butcher block performs. I actually made a successful batch of biscuits last night!

Still no kitchen party. I guess that means we're not really done quite yet.

MelissaH

[phaelon56]

If we could find some cheap inch-thick stone to use for a backsplash, this would also solve the problem for us, because the thickness of the stone would then hide the gap.

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I know many people around here swear by Roma Tile and Marbel on Wolf Street but when i did some granit work a few years back I used Vallar Tile and Marble

400 N Midler Ave # 1

Syracuse, NY 13206

(315) 463-7251

What I appreciated is the fact that they worked with me for very good pricing on scrap pieces that were long and narrow. Might be worth checking when your'e down this way. And if you plan to visit the Ithaca Farmer's Market this season (which anyone living within a two hour drive of Ithaca should do) .... then take the back route from Homer / Cortland. Instead of going through Dryden to Rte 13 go over McLean Rd (turn off Rte 281 by Doug's Fish Fry)through McLean to Freeville on your way to Ithaca (BTW - much faster than going through Dryden!). There's a kitchen tile, stone and marble place on the corner in Freeville and they have a big outdoor lot about a half block away that has loads of stone. If your'e flexible about cooler the scrap can sometimes be affordable (in relative terms).

[MelissaH]

I know many people around here swear by Roma  Tile and Marbel on Wolf Street but when i did some granit work a few years back I used Vallar Tile and Marble

400 N Midler Ave # 1

Syracuse, NY 13206

(315) 463-7251

What I appreciated is the fact that they worked with me for very good pricing on scrap pieces that were long and narrow. Might be worth checking when your'e down this way.

We'll check it out the next time we're down that way.

And if you plan to visit the Ithaca Farmer's Market this season (which anyone living within a two hour drive of Ithaca should do) ....  then take the back route from  Homer / Cortland.  Instead of going through Dryden to Rte 13 go over McLean Rd (turn off Rte 281 by Doug's Fish  Fry)through McLean to Freeville on your way to Ithaca (BTW - much faster than going through Dryden!).  There's a kitchen tile, stone and marble place on the corner in Freeville and they have a big outdoor lot about a half block away that has loads of stone.  If your'e flexible about cooler the scrap can sometimes be affordable (in relative terms).

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Well, we're pretty much due north of Ithaca. So for us, the best way to get there is actually to zip down Rte 34 through Weedsport, Auburn, and Lansing, which usually takes a hair over two hours. Unless we're coming from Geneva, in which case it's 414 to 96.

[jgarner53]

I'm sorry you are experiencing this issue.  After cleaning, your oven shelves may become so clean that they do not slide easily. To make the shelves slide more easily, after each cleaning, dampen your fingers with a small amount of cooking oil. Rub the oil lightly over the sides of the shelves where they come in contact with the shelf supports.

Melissa, do you have the rolling racks like DCS has? I've noticed that mine are a bit sticky and had wondered about oiling them just a bit to make them glide easier. It's supposed to be this big feature of the range that these racks slide out so easily, and mine, not so much.

Congrats on wintering in your kitchen! Good note about the butcher block - that certainly wouldn't have occurred to me.

Lyon is one smart kitty! I doubt ours could even figure out which drawer the treats were in, much less get in there. He'd rather stand (or sit) by his scratching post and complain (he gets treats for using the post).

[MelissaH]

Melissa, do you have the rolling racks like DCS has? I've noticed that mine are a bit sticky and had wondered about oiling them just a bit to make them glide easier. It's supposed to be this big feature of the range that these racks slide out so easily, and mine, not so much.

Ours are just like the oven racks I've seen on every other oven: the inside of the oven has ridges molded in, and the racks ride directly on the ridges. And yes, a smidge of mineral oil on the edges of the racks works wonders for slideability!

Lyon is one smart kitty! I doubt ours could even figure out which drawer the treats were in, much less get in there. He'd rather stand  (or sit) by his scratching post and complain (he gets treats for using the post).

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He must have learned from his brother, the one who knows how to pop open the cabinets in the house we used to live in. When we first got the boys, we kept the treats in a low cabinet. One day we came home to find that Leo had not only opened the cabinet where the treats were kept, but that he had somehow taken the top off the treat canister and eaten the whole thing! (And how did we know this was Leo's doing? That's easy: Lyon had gotten himself shut in the bathroom all day.)

There's smart, and then there's kitty smart.

MelissaH

[MelissaH]

Did I say that mineral oil was wonderful? I discovered the downside on Saturday as I baked a cake.

Obviously, the smoke point of the mineral oil I used is below 350 °F. I let the oven preheat as I mixed the batter. Just as I was alternately adding the dry ingredients and the milk, I became aware of an odor like that of burning plastic. I opened the oven, and white smoke billowed out. At that point my cake could not be delayed, so I just left the oven door open, turned on the convection fan to help blow out the smoke, and opened the screen door to help air circulate throughout the house. (Good thing it wasn't below freezing, or precipitating at that moment!)

I went ahead and finished the batter, scraped it into the pan but forgot to marble the walnut and mocha layers , and slid it into the oven. I checked the cake a couple of times, briefly opening the oven door to let the smoke out. By the time the cake was baked, the smoke was completely gone.

The cake was for the annual departmental picnic. Nobody complained about either (1) the lack of marbling or (2) any plasticky taste. I didn't detect any plastic in the cake myself, so it must have been fine.

I haven't used the oven since, but the racks slide marvelously well! Now, if I could only come up with something else to use as lube, preferably with a smoke point well above normal oven temperatures!

MelissaH

[chemprof]

Melissa,

I'm in the middle of planning my own kitchen reno, and like so many I'm having trouble deciding on appliances. Other than knowing I want a gas cooktop and an electric oven, I've been going back and forth between an cooktop and wall ovens (GE Profile) and a range. I've just recently started looking at the Monogram ranges, specifically the 36" six burner one like you have. I'm so glad to go through this thread and see how much you like it. I was a little worried about the oven, it seemed really low and I didn't know about the size. The price is a little scary too (but hey, once you were looking at a cooktop and wall ovens it's just a "little" bit more!

One question, what kind of sink did you get? I'm sorry I've been through most of the pages of your post and I couldn't find it, except that you said you really liked it for cleanup!

Any other comments that you (or anyone) might want to make about the Monogram would be really helpful!

Take care,

Anne

[MelissaH]

Melissa,

I'm in the middle of planning my own kitchen reno, and like so many I'm having trouble deciding on appliances.  Other than knowing I want a gas cooktop and an electric oven, I've been going back and forth between an cooktop and wall ovens (GE Profile) and a range.  I've just recently started looking at the Monogram ranges, specifically the  36" six burner one like you have.  I'm so glad to go through this thread and see how much you like it.  I was a little worried about the oven, it seemed really low and I didn't know about the size.  The price is a little scary too (but hey, once you were looking at a cooktop and wall ovens it's just a "little" bit more! 

If you think it might be too low, see if you can find one (in any size) and play with it. Definitely bring along any large- or odd-sized dishes/pots/pans that you think you might want to use inside, to make sure they'll fit well, especially if you can find the size you'll want. How low would the second oven of a double wall oven be?

One question, what kind of sink did you get?  I'm sorry I've been through most of the pages of your post and I couldn't find it, except that you said you really liked it for cleanup!

Our sink is an Elkay, stainless, drop-in, giant-size single bowl. I think this is it. It's worked really well, especially for washing the things that don't go in the dishwasher or that would take up an inordinate amount of space. I can lay a half-sheet pan flat in the bottom, or my largest roasting pan. I can also get long stuff to fit, like rhubarb or celery. Or racks of ribs. Or a whole walleye, to keep the scaling somewhat neater. After nearly a year of use, it's got a few scratches, but as far as we're concerned, that just means we actually use our showpiece kitchen.

We're also enjoying our faucet, a Grohe Alira. The integral sprayer is particularly nice to have in conjunction with the single giant bowl, as we can reach anywhere in the sink without having to contort the sprayer hose.

Any other comments that you (or anyone) might want to make about the Monogram would be really helpful!

Take care,

Anne

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We still love it. It gives us the very high heat my husband likes to use for stir-frying. Our house-sitter was envious, since we can boil a pot of water for spaghetti in only a few minutes. But we also get a wonderfully low simmer. I've virtually quit using the microwave to melt chocolate in quantities larger than an ounce, since I can put the chocolate in a metal bowl, put that on the burner on simmer, and pay it about the same attention the microwave would require, what with the stop to stir every 30 seconds. And of course we can get everything in-between also. I've had to learn to turn the burners on something lower than I'd become accustomed to using. We've both gotten very good at keeping a potholder or dry bar towel on our persons when we're cooking, because we now have hot pot handles (a new phenomenon for us) to worry about. You're a chemist, so you've surely heard the saying, "Hot glass looks like cold glass"? The same is true of pot handles, and we both learned quickly after the first time. Our house-sitter also learned the hard way, despite reading about it in the notes we'd left him AND cooking under our supervision a couple of times. (He's a former student of my husband's, who likes food but is still very much in the bottom of the learning curve, where everything is new. He's a lot of fun to teach!)

I love having continuous grates, because it means you can slide stuff around the top with abandon. The only minor issue we've had is that a couple of our smaller (1 qt) saucepans can tip if you aren't careful about where you put them on the burner grate, or if you don't have something good and heavy in them.

Will you be using natural gas or propane? My parents have the four-burner version, which they run on propane since there are no gas lines in the county. We aren't sure whether the propane or the high elevation (8600 ft above sea level) is to blame more, but their high isn't quite as high as ours.

If you're planning for a potent cooktop, try to also plan for a potent hood that vents outside. When you have a terrific stove, it's really easy to do a lot of fun stuff that can smell up a house. A good backsplash is a must also, because high heat cooking means splatters.

As far as the oven: it's terrific fun. The thermostat's been spot-on since Day One. I can bake flat cakes, for once. I have some plain tiles, which I put on the back of a cheapo half-sheet pan and use as a pizza stone; I can turn the convection on, crank the oven up as high as it will go, and do pizzas with crust that are the equal of our local pizza shops. (Gotta work more on the sauce, though. And maybe get one of the screens they use, too, since I'm not so good at keeping my pie round.) And speaking of convection, I can bake a whole batch of chocolate chip cookie dough at once, which is great for instant gratification. Even with fairly limited aisle space, we've never had a problem with space. And it's well-enough insulated that the kitchen doesn't heat up noticeably, as long as you're not doing something like pizza where the door is opened to put one in, and then opened again five minutes later to take it out, and then opened again in a couple of minutes to load the next one in. But it is a big hot space, and between the pizzas and the no-knead bread, we keep a pair of leather elbow-length welding gloves in the drawer with the potholders.

We've run the self-clean cycle once so far. It stunk up the house a bit, although we don't know if that was just because it was the first time and there was odiferous gunk to burn off. We chose a chilly day, and next time we'll make sure it's warm enough to have the windows open. You also need to make sure you're home, because the self-clean cycle works like this: you start it, and after a little while the internal vent fan comes on because it gets hot enough inside the oven for the thermo-switch to activate. You know the self-clean cycle is done when the vent fan turns itself OFF, and at that point you need to manually turn the oven off. (You'd think that with what the beast costs, it would at least shut down automatically. Geez! ) It was fairly easy to sponge away the ash left over from the self-clean cycle. As others have noted, the racks don't slide as well after a self-clean. And as I noted earlier, mineral oil will smoke with a plasticky odor if you use that to re-lube the racks. But once the volatiles in the oil burned off, the racks slide well and we don't get any more smoke. I'm wondering if maybe silicone oil, like what we used in oil baths in lab, would be a better option...or if it's just best to make a plan to smoke the kitchen on purpose, immediately after each self-clean cycle.

My other advice for those considering kitchen renovations, particularly those involving plumbing: try out your plans for washing dishes before you get stuck with them. In my case, that meant doing dishes in a miniature, shallow bar sink down in the family room. (Before this project started, we removed the other leg of the bar to open up the family room. The bar migrated outside, where it still acts as counterspace by the grill, and also helps to protect the antique propane cookstove that we also used during the reno. The barsink was so small that I wound up washing the pasta pot in the bathtub instead, and it was so low that I wished I could have gotten a chair underneath to save my back. As things went, one of our kitchen cabinets arrived damaged. They didn't want it back, and instead just sent us a new one. The damage was on a back corner that would have showed prominently in the kitchen, but as it turned out, would be hidden in the family room. We even had a leftover piece of countertop big enough to go on top. And then we found a cheap sink at the local Bargain Outlet. We already had a faucet, the one we took out of the kitchen (which we'd put in shortly after moving here). So after the kitchen was finished, we removed what was left of the bar downstairs. My husband rejiggered the plumbing to accommodate the new arrangement, and we put in the new cabinet and sink. A trip to IKEA furnished us with doors for the cabinet (full-height, so we can get at the sink if need be). And we have a wine fridge down there that's about the same height as the cabinet. The space between the fridge and the cabinet just serves as more wine storage space, as we have a set of shelves to fit there and it stays a relatively cool and constant temperature. I wish we'd had the bigger sink before we started, as it would have made my life much easier. Oh well.

But, we will NOT be doing this again. My husband's been recommended for continuing appointment by the university president (that means tenure, for you non-academic folks out there) so we won't be moving again except if we choose to do so ourselves. We're happy, and relieved, and as a result we're enjoying this summer even more.

MelissaH

[chemprof]

Melissa-

Thanks so much for all the great info! I'm now drooling for my 6-burner Monogram (it would be natural gas, not propane). I'm off the the appliance store (with my roasting pan and cookie sheet in tow!).

Oh and CONGRATULATIONS to you and your husband on the holy grail, tenure! Believe me, I know how good that feels!

Take care,

Anne

[Varmint]

I've now had that Monogram for over 2 years, and I still like it a lot. It's not the easiest sucker to clean, but a range should always be a bit dirty, eh?

One thing that I've learned is to not flip over the burner grates for woks. If you do that, the wok is too far away from the flame and doesn't get hot enough. Instead, I just remove the primary grate over the burner, leaving the outside grate frame (made of the same material). My wok then sits right on top of the burner and gets a LOT hotter.

Finally, I absolutely agree that you MUST get a good hood, and get used to cleaning it. When you have a range with this type of performance, it puts out lots of vaporized oils and smoke, and your hood will suck them up, where they'll quickly deposit. But it's all worth it.

Have fun!

[MelissaH]

Today's big activity was the second self-cleaning cycle of the oven. This time I took the racks out, because they didn't seem particularly dirty. I also wanted to see whether the racks will slide smoothly if only the oven has been cleaned.

It's been on the cool side here, but not too cold. This is good because I was able to open the windows and the sliding door. This time around, the kitchen heated up a bit, but I only smelled heat, not chemical-plasticky-yucky odors. So I guess whatever happened the first time was just stuff burning off, and we don't need to worry about it for the future.

The self-clean cycle takes five hours, from the time you push the button and turn the knob to the time the fan clicks off and you can turn the oven off. The door's still locked, and I'm keeping an eye on it so I know how long it stays hot.

MelissaH

[BekkiM]

Thanks for the update, MelissaH. Please do post back and let us know how the second round of self-cleaning turns out. They delivered a big-ass dolly yesterday, so it's possible that they're actually moving my GE Monogram range into the kitchen today (or possibly tomorrow) and I'm looking forward to discovering its quirks.

[MelissaH]

Thanks for the update, MelissaH.  Please do post back and let us know how the second round of self-cleaning turns out.  They delivered a big-ass dolly yesterday, so it's possible that they're actually moving my GE Monogram range into the kitchen today (or possibly tomorrow) and I'm looking forward to discovering its quirks.

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Well, I discovered a big quirk yesterday. The oven door's still locked this morning. I called the number for service, and the first thing they recommended I do was kill the power by flipping the breaker and keeping it off for at least 30 seconds. When I came back upstairs, the "door lock" light was still on. So now I'm trying recommendation #2: running a short (1-2 hours) self-clean cycle, turning it off and letting it cool, and seeing if that does the trick.

The person I spoke with said that sometimes the door will refuse to unlock if the self-clean cycle gets interrupted somehow. We've had problems with power failures this week, but I didn't think we'd had one yesterday. Nonetheless, in about an hour and a half, I'll be able to turn the oven back off, and a couple of hours after that it should be cooled down enough to open. IhopeIhopeIhope

MelissaH