LOL, you crack me up "never seen a fat Vietnamese woman"!

You kitchen sounds great. I wish I could order a new stove. I thought my stovetop went out a few weeks ago, but it must have thrown a breaker or something.

Your ideas sound so well-planned--I've commented before that I can almost see the wheels turning. It will be nice to be able to watch another kitchen come to life here. BTW, before I found GW, (and Kitchens forum) I'd never even heard of a Bertazzoni, or a cfm, for that matter. Happy you found a great deal!

Sounds like a dream coming true to me. I absolutely LOVED my 24 inch stove in our tiny house in Challis. I know it all sounds so small but it really is a perfect size.

ML, that all sounds great! Where are you going to get the stainless countertop from?

I agree with mamaG! I can hear the wheels a turn'n and there's a lot on these forums I'd never heard about before coming here! gads, I've learned a lot in the past yr!

Vietnamese women - I chuckled at that too. Their diet (at least in the past) has been mostly natural stuff. not the processed/sugary/chemical stuff we eat here. They're probably getting more of it these days. Might see a fat one any day now... lol! You should read the China Study - or if easier watch the fork / knife movie. So telling. I really don't think the special wok cooking matters, it's what's in the pot that matters more.

Still, I'm glad you're getting what you want for your kitchen. and happy to see it moving forward.

ML- How exciting! Do you have any pictures? I'm a visual person and I can't wait to see your plan, countertop material, flooring, etc...and that range! :)

I have had the 24" Bertazzoni for about 3 years and it is wonderful. I did have to retire my old lasagna pan as it was just a bit too wide for Berta's interior. I used an oven thermometer for the first couple of months until I got used to the temp dial. I think you will really love it!

Hi ALL....and I do appreciate the positive remarks made here.
MamaGoose, I plan a long time, but maybe with my personal bias instead of objectivity taking control.

And Lass, I do have pictures of the stove, but they are not MINE, just the formal sales shots. It is a gorgeous stove, and I KNEW it would be right for us. It does everything that a larger range does, just takes up less space doing it.

And JoyceDC, your experience with the exact model I'm getting is much appreciated. I've gotten together a lot of pots/pans which will fit this range, even the compact oven.
If it had been a GE range, they'd tout it as a "dual fuel" range, because the cooking top is gas, and the oven is electric. It is not a 220 electric circuit though. Something like a real 120 circuit. Makes me feel like I'll be using one of those little girl ranges they sold when I was a kid....it used lightbulbs, didn't it? But it will give me the room I need to bake bread, cookies (small cookie sheets), and a broiler unit too.

Maybe next week I'll tell DH that I ordered it. I'd saved up my allowance to get this, and when they LOWERED THE PRICE while I was looking at the page, I almost fainted. Lower than Amazon, lower than e-Bay, and I KNEW IT WAS A SIGN....if God had not meant for me to have that range, he would not have prompted the company to DROP THE PRICE.
hehehehehe

Steph, I'll look into the China Study and the fork/knife movie too. I'm doing a LOT of reading these days, and have trouble with this laptop, so I may HAVE to get a new puter very soon. I'd tried to avoid it, but it might happen anyway.

This is the stainless backsplash with utinsel bar. The one in the pic is much wider than 24 inches though.

And the hood has 600 CFM sucking power, which can be recirculating (if I got that kit, which I did not), or
direct vent, which is what we will have. Get RID of the hot air. I might have to post it later, cannot find the picture now. It won't be as gorgeous as Mama's converted bin, but it will be out of my way and something that will take all the condensation and heat out of our small house.

BTW, I have a tall skinny pot just like the one sitting on the burner, and it has a wire basket inside, boils corn on cob nicely or macaroni, love it.

Somebody asked where I'm getting the stainless counter tops. Well, I'm going over to the restaurant supply house and seeing what they have USED. My contractor will be able to alter it to fit easily I'm sure. And, I did try to visit the Habitat for Humanity RESTORE yesterday, but discovered they'd closed shop there, learned by visiting their website they'd moved to the other side of town.

ML- That is going to look wonderful, in your kitchen! How exciting!!! :)

oh, that is a beautiful range! having a BS a bit wider than the range would be good, wouldn't it? maybe a few inches on either side?

that is just gonna be lovely ML! can't wait to see it all put together. you're starting this wkend, right? lol!

That oven is a beauty! I love how it is flush with the counter too. I can't wait to hear how you like it.

That is a Gorgeous hunk of stove. What I loved so much about my apartment stove which was nothing near as nice as yours other than size , was the burners being all close together. I just loved using my grill spanning two of them I had been working as a cook in a cafe and got used to the grill top stove and it really was hard for me to go back to fry pans.

I hope DH will be good with it. guess you will have to be telling him soon since it will be arriving. HUGS of support ML.

I have a flat grill which spans two burners, but I'll be looking for a cast iron one like my Lodge black iron cookware. My wok is a Lodge 14 inch flat bottom one, which means it holds the heat down there, and I've been shopping (ahh yes, S H O P P I N G!!!) over the past 4 years (since we bought this house on Valentine Day 2008) and stashing things, sort of like a "hope chest."

There is a correction I must make, which became clear to me after I reread the owner's manual for the Bertazzoni range.
And, then, JoyceDC was kind enough to delicately point it out to me in a private email, my error about the range. What I am pleased about is how sensitive Joyce is to perhaps embarrassing me for making such an error, and she wrote what she knew to me privately. How nice it is to have another great person join the forum of exemplary people!!
We always have room for kindness.

But....where I erred, the oven is not electric. It has an electric convection fan, and electric ignition elsewhere too. But the broiling unit and the oven unit, all the cooking stuff, is gas. I knew that from having read the manual before, but it just did not sink in properly. I'm happy to have a gas stove, because it will allow us to cook during times after hurricanes. Provided the house is still standing, which I think it will be, as DH says it is over built (just his style), has tongue and groove roof decking that is 3/4 inch thick and heart pine, OLD stuff, and the stucco walls are really tough. Our roof will be standing seam metal, and be chosen from the State Farm list of approved products, considered hurricane resistant. I've also been collecting pictures of rooflines with such roofing, and considering what shape I want for the new section of roof above the old back porch when it is extended to make the master bedroom addition. But then, I'll have to discuss this with the designer and contractor, what is recommended as least for maintenance, because DH wants to just extend the existing gable without interruption over the entire new part. However, that new part of the house will have Hardie Plank exterior similar to the plain stucco, but not LIKE it. And I do not want it to look cobbled together, I want it to be an honest and apparent well thought-out addition, giving the house some personality and flavor, even if it is stuck on the back of the house behind a privacy fence. But I digress here. For this, I'll begin a new thread something about ROOFING an addition. okay?

ML, plans sound great!

I recommend looking into a triple pane window for the kitchen. We got one for the library/office. It was not a huge amount more than double. Triple has an advantage. They can put reflective coating on both surfaces of the inside pane, plus on the inside surfaces of the outer panes. If you can find a good triple pane you may find that you do not get heat gain inside.

Here is a link that might be useful: windows thread

Nancy, was thinking of you the other day, wondering where you'd been spending your time, so glad to see you here.

Your recommendation is a good one, and I will definitely be looking into it for the garden window. That will be the only new south-facing window addition, strictly speaking. And so many people disapprove of garden windows because of the heat gain. I'm thinking I can deal with that, especially with the triple glazing. If you happen to run across a manufacturer of the BEST RATED such window, I'd appreciate you dropping the word on us.

I may not have commented about the beauty of this range. I am telling you, it is polished to a fare-thee-well, the shute of the vent has a Bertazzoni medallion on it, nothing but CLASS. My DH says it is truly an Italian work of art, that they are known for producing. So take a look at my new Italian masterpiece... I'll add wheels and call it my Ferrari. Yeah, I could have gotten a RED one I guess. :)

I'm starting a different thread about flooring. Still on this forum, although I'll search on the flooring forum to see what I find. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Hi Moccasin--
I might have missed your update.
Have you started cooking on this range ?
I am considering a 30" whenever my Magic Chef decides not to cook for me. He's still happy here though.
My Sweetheart keeps asking me how much it costs. I'm not telling yet until I decide. You see I cannot vent outside and this seems like the best range-simplicity of design, simplicity for repairs, power, looks --for my situation. I cannot use a pro range for obvious reasons.

Sad to say, no I have not. It is in my Teahouse with several other items for the new kitchen. The remodel project is NOT moving ahead at this point. I want to get it done before DH returns south, but it will be later in the year.

The Berta range I have is 24 inch wide, an apartment size I think they say. The 30 inch is a lovely thing. Mine is like a piece of jewelry, very well constructed, not a flaw on it, so smooth and gorgeous, the edges are very professional looking. In my book, it is a "professional range."

My criteria was for a burner with high BTUs so I could put a wok on it, and stir fry. That takes high heat.

I have decided to swap the stove location with the refrigerator location. The range will go on the south wall, exterior faces south, I can have a more open feeling there with the low range instead of the high french door fridge unit. And, the south wall is always hotter and it makes the fridge work harder. So if I do not install any upper cabs, I can have windows above the cabs either side of the range, letting in super great light and a view of my New Orleans style courtyard.

That places the fridge unit on the north wall of the kitchen, and I can then install a tall pantry cabinet (IKEA calls them that) on either side of the fridge, and still have room for some counter space either side.

I'm trying to line up the double doorway from living room into dining room, with the one I'll create when we knock out the dining room to kitchen wall, and then the other opening to the old back porch from the present kitchen, you put them all in a line that way and it is called "enfilade" (French) for "lined up", and then I'll have the back door, a glass door with blinds inside the two layers, and it will be a really long view. It is not adding any space to our kitchen, you see, but it is giving a more spacious flow. And, I'm going to have the Bellawood light ash narrow boards installed kitchen and all.

I've been saving my allowance to tack onto the remodel budget, above what DH estimates he wishes to pay. I know it will be more, adding in the hardwood floors and then a new metal roof over the whole house.

It just has to be done before I come down with Altzheimers!
:)

Glad you asked, I've been very busy with gardening, my brother ill with liver cancer, and now a close friend down with lung and brain cancer. Life is precious. Peace to all.

I am so sorry to hear of your brother and close friend. You are so right, life is precious. Spend as much time with them as you can, you'll never regret it.

that's gonna be a lovely combination of rooms when it's done!

I see now why you've not been on here lately... prayers for your brother and friend. That life is very precious is something we should remember each day.

Love that stove. I am really regretting not buying the ss now. It does look so sleek. I rebelled at first cause I thought it was too hyped up and who wants fingerprints, but the whole game changed now thanks to advances in technology. The stove doesn't look too small. I had one like that before and the only thing I missed was a place to rest my cooking utensils on the space between the burners. I hope you have counter space on either side.

MsJ, yes indeed, counter space on either side, will be a full 2 feet both ways. Then There will be more counter space adjacent to the sink beyond the 2 foot right of the stove.

I'm thinking whether to make it a galley style with no peninsula sticking out between stove and sink, which will keep from having a sort of dead corner requiring more expensive lazy susan twirl outs. I think a straight run will be much cheaper buying counter tops, and then I will be able to roll up my counter height rolling island with a stainless steel top,

I did intend to put the fridge in that spot on the south wall, but I was thinking about running the gas line under the house, and it would be less hazardous to just have the water lines there. And the power, but I think power is in the attic and comes down. Plus, the stove is much lower than the fridge, takes up less volume overall, and I can put more windows along the south side to see my Courtyard garden. There will be no demolition of existing walls on the south, since it is just porch and not cement stucco up high.

The power supply, breaker box/meter, will be moved out a bit because right now it is rubbing the power line on part of our sun porch roof, and we need it mounted on a weatherhead to raise it up where it is not low over the driveway. I suppose the people who installed it that way did not think, back in 1950, about parking motor homes or campers or dump trucks full of dirt, or workers with racks on their pickup trucks coming down the driveway!!

But that is part of the kitchen job. Right now, the dang inside breaker box is beside the SINK, for pete sake, and I want it turned 90 or 180 degrees to face the OTHER direction AWAY from the sink, as much as possible, and somehow create a decorative door to hide it. That will be in the space between the sink and the stove.

I've been at a standstill for several reasons, but now I hope to get the designer involved, to work out the power, fine tune the drawing of how to raise the floors to all one level, how to make the exterior hardie plank fit with the cement stucco attractively, the roof line so we can change to a standing seam metal--which I want to look really good and not be hard to install--too many ups and downs and it would mess up the neat appearance of the metal and perhaps invite leaks in the future.

don't you have another thread showing specifics on your kitchen? I would love to look at it again. I know I saw it. Can you post a link?

ML, I thought of you today. I stopped by an appliance store to browse cooktops, and told the guy that I really wanted a Bertazzoni double oven range, and he took me in the back room and showed me a single oven range that looks a lot like yours. I wanted to run my hands all over it. Soooo pretty. Are you dying to get yours installed so you can use it?