This is exciting! It's like you have a blank slate! You can do anything you want. Start with a cabinet color you really like and go from there. You can add color and interest with a backsplash and accents. Right now I feel you have too many shades of brown. Paint is an inexpensive and wonderful thing! What style are you going for? You could do something industrial by changing the built in shelves to open shelving with cables for example. Have fun!

I have to admit I really like my white appliances in my vintage style kitchen. I just have a regular white range, though if I had space, I would do this:

Then, I would either sell the other appliances or slowly change them out as they die.

It is probably too late to do this, but I love my short apron style farm sink (Kohler Whitehaven short apron) which can be installed on a standard sink base cabinet. It can be retrofitted, but that is expensive.

https://www.houzz.com/photos/my-pics-work-in-progress-phvw-vp~93784356

jhmaire, That is a fabulous pic for inspiration. Thank you.

doctor van - We don't have a blank slate. We are not changing anything but the stove. The cabinets, while we don't love them, are only seven years old, bought by the prior homeowners and it feels really wasteful to switch them out. They are cheap and not worth painting. I like the color of our walls a lot. Our dishwasher is a few years old and I hope we don't have to replace it anytime soon. So it really is just the range that went kaput and we are trying to figure out what colors make it in.

Sage green was my thought.

Your current hood doesn't look sufficient for the very high-powered Bluestar I am afraid. It has serious btus. Do you know the size of the duct at the hood?

I vote for white or black.

Frieda June, Yes, Good point we are looking into the power of our hood, however, my dad, an HVAC engineer, and the guy at the store both said it really doesn't matter much. We don't to a lot of smokey cooking. The hood does vent outside though, which is nice!

Besides the smoke from cooking, you are trying to get rid of the very unhealthy gas fumes. The 22 and 25K burners put out a lot of them.

Jerry - I'm confused. Why would there be any gas fumes at all? If burners and oven are lit, then there should be no gas escaping, correct?

There is no such thing as complete combustion. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a27/ "Gas burners were estimated to add 25–33% to the week-averaged indoor NO2concentrations during summer and 35–39% in winter."

Go with white. It won't limit your options when you decide to renovate. It won't horrify anyone looking at the house if or when you decide to sell.

You will absolutely need to upgrade your ventilation. All gas appliances require adequate ventilation. Your proposed new gas appliance will be a beast on steroids. This unit will require better ventilation. Go to the appliance store and fire up two or three burners on a BlueStar. You will get the idea. If your new range is a 4-burner, it will need at least 600 cfm at a minimum. Your current ventilation is insufficient. The cfm requirements are on the BlueStar website.

They all have a tleast some stainless on them so no problem choose the color you like and as far as ventilation you need to think about that before buying the stove since what you have will be useless and next time you buy a fridge get a counter depth one.. IMO the Bluestar range is a bit overkill in this kitchen

Leave well enough alone until you can budget to do proper ventilation needed by that fire breather. That means doing the required Make Up Air that you will need as well. Budget the same amount that you spend on the range for the venting system.

Or, get a white plain serviceable range, like by GE or Whirlpool, with more deal-able btus, like 12-15k btus on one high-power burner, instead of 22-25k on all four. And a 4-burner top, not a 5-burner. I think white will look very nice in that kitchen.

Or, if you want a project, search for a vintage refurbished range by Chambers or O'keefe and Merritt. People love them. The vintage ones though are typically wider than 30", about 35-39" wide, so if you get one, your uppers and base cabinet to the right of the range will have to go or move over. You would still need a new hood over the vintage range - the hood would need to be 36-42" wide to cover the wider range. But that hood wouldn't need to exhaust a combined 44000 btus like it would for the Bluestar (that is with just 2 burners going).

Thank you all for raising the question about ventilation. I didn't realize how much research I still have to do. Off to scour the EPA and WHO websites. Also, what is Make Up Air?

Friedajune - We are stuck on buying a Made inUSA appliance that has no digital components. If there are plain Jane serviceable gas ranges that fit those criteria, you are right, it would make more sense for us to get them instead of getting a powerhouse Blue Star - I just haven't come across them.

Yes, I love O'keefe and Merrit and had them in three different apartments in my 20s. I guess it was a Bay Area thing? Pure cooking delight. I've looked for vintage stoves online but have not seen any 30" wide; we only have room to accommodate that width.

Sophie - We have the money to rip our whole kitchen out and do a $150K makeover, its just not how we like to spend our money. So, while I sometimes feel I'm putting lipstick on a pig with my oversized fridge and "A will this make do?" kind of fan, it ultimately gives me more pleasure to keep a fan that can work and give the $5,000 to a homeless person instead. Will just have to do my homework to see if the fan is adequate.

Kendra,

If you are set on getting a colored range, then I would NOT get a white one. White looks as if it was a make-do color when coupled with stainless steel. (I know because I had hodge-podge of white and stainless when I was not ready to do my kitchen.) The Vintage stove works in white because it is vintage, not because it is white. Blue Star looks too modern, and white modern appliance gives an impression of cheap.

You need a statement color. I would go with something that is rich and deep: forest green, navy blue or burgundy which would complement the wood cabinet. Blue star probably makes matching hoods. I would order a hood to match the stove.

I have a nearly twenty year old cobalt blue Viking that I really love. It still works beautifully. There is no electronics, so nothing to break. If the ignitor starts clicking, I just clean it. There are better products now. However, when I bought it, it was either Viking, Thermador, Wolf pro style ranges. The other brands did not really have much of presence. Either that you installed the restaurant range like a Garland. There were not many choices then.

I love the infrared broiler on my Viking. It goes on FAST and broils
beautifully. I would miss my broiler more than the burners if I got a
lower power gas range.

My hood is under designed for what I do. If I am doing smokey things, I have to open the window. When I remember to open the window, then it's just fine! I can live with that. I also own another house that has a Viking (which came with the house) with an island hood, and that also is under designed for serious smoke. That only happens rarely. I don't know how much more power the hoods need be coupled with make up air, so that I would NEVER have smoke in the house. I guess I will not find out since I will not be replacing the hood with make up air. I do have the whole house make up air that brings in air on a timer, which is the code for HVAC. That is NOT the same thing as the make up air for the hood.

Make up air is important if your house is tight and the fan cannot draw in the air from any other source and it ends up back drafting from other sources, and CO poisoning can effect. Older houses where the house is an air sieve (ie leaky and drafty), it is not as essential. Additionally, near by open window can act as make up air for the hood. That's what I do. I had my pro range installed nearly 2 decades ago with the standard hood that was coupled with it. People have been using pro style ranges in their homes for many decades without make up air until the new code of make up air has become an issue.

Houses are not the only thing people chose to spend money, and finding a workable solution without spending the top dollar is good enough for many of us.

Good luck.

1. Just geeked out on a whole bunch of reports from EPA, WHO, NHI, and have to say I am still confused. Yes, it talks about the reduction of combustible gas from cooking appliances but makes no mention of how many BTU's equal what level of output of NO2. Is there a comparison between BTU to NO2?

2. I checked out the Blue Star installation manual or owner's manual and it recommends you use a minimum of 300 CFM. I took apart my current hood and it is 280, not far off.

3. I'm also curious if these variables impact the NO2 level: Where is the fan placed? The rear burners are often the simmer burners, no? So if the fan is directly above a back burner how does it suck in air from the front burners, or if the fan is not centered in the hood then how does it get air from the back burner next to it?

4. Is the NO2 output of the Blue Star all that intense if you are not using all four burners at the same time - which we rarely do? What if you are not doing smokey cooking- again we rarely do.

I'm totally cool with shelling out $1200 for a Blue Star hood if it makes sense, just having a hard time figuring what I need and how much of a difference it will make in my air quality. (Luckily, we have had the ability to limit our biggest potential exposure to NO2 - living near a highway or power plant. Nor do we have an attached garage or other smaller factors that contribute to indoor NO2.)

Do look at nice colors- and consider a stainless hood. I think the matching color is too much sometimes.

If you get the Blue Star range I'd definitely put in a real hood. It does put out a lot of heat. BS makes hoods as you know, as does Prizer (owner of BS). When I bought my BS range, they were having an offer giving you a discount off of a BS hood if you bought it at the same time. The appliance store let me know about the Prizer link to BS, and said it also applied to Prizer hoods. Just FYI if such an offer exists when/if you purchase a range.

And I totally agree to get a statement color for your kitchen. The white is nice but a bold color would be incredible.

If you still live in CA (you mentioned the bay area) you may not even need makeup air. When we remodeled a few years ago it was not required, and I don't think that has changed.

Today, with my kitchen, I feel like I picked at a thread of a sweater and the whole thing is unraveling:

A new hood is going to drop down much more than our current slender one. It feels like it will be right in my face. Maybe I'm just not used to the distance it would be from the range to the hood? Do other people feel like their hood is hitting them in the face? I'm only 5'8. Wondering if my cabinet above the hood is too tall and if I should replace it with a shorter one? Ugh.

How often do you all use your hood? Every time you cook? Sometimes?

My understanding is that the hood should be turned on before you ignite the burners. Of course cooking a steak will require a different level of pull than steaming some veggies.

PS And it's a good idea to have the hood on when you are using the oven as well.

Kendrah, you need to check your local building codes (I'd suggest calling the building department) if you want to find out what is required re: range hood/make up air. In Ontario, if you have a fan with 500 cfm or more, you have to have makeup air. It doesn't matter if you never use the highest setting on your fan - if it's over 500 cfm, then you have to have it. Our fan, over a 5 burner Thermador gas cooktop which doesn't appear to be quite the fire-breathing dragon the Bluestar is (18,000 BTU tops vs 21,000) is over 600 cfm when going full blast, so we did have to put in the makeup air. That said, this was a new build, not an existing house. I doubt you need a permit to replace your stove, so in the end, what you do is up to you, though you should make sure that the fan is adequate for the stove.

I'm not sure where you saw that you only need 300 cfm for the 30" range - if it's the one I'm looking at on the Bluestar site, it's got a total BTU of 62,000 for the 4 burners, so you need a lot more than 300 cfm. From Bluestar's own site:

"When shopping for a new range or cooktop, don’t ignore ventilation or you might be in for an unanticipated purchase. The bottom line: Higher BTU heat output requires higher power ventilation. How do you know if your current fan is up to the task? As reported in the New York Times primer, Your Stove Just Needs to Vent, “the rule of thumb for gas stoves is that the range hood needs to remove 100 cubic feet per minute for every 10,000 BTUs of burner output.” This means a gas stove with 50,000 BTUs of total burner output requires a range hood that can accommodate 500 cubic feet per minute. And, adds the Times, “Err toward a stronger vent if you frequently do Asian-style or stir-fry cooking.”"

So...you are going to need over 600 cfm. There are lots of thin under cabinet fans out there - here's one (wayfair.ca, but I'm sure you can find something in the US) https://www.wayfair.ca/appliances/pdp/kobe-range-hoods-30-brillia-750-cfm-ducted-under-cabinet-range-hood-kbrh1120.html - no idea at all whether this one is good, bad or indifferent, but it gives you an idea of what's possible.

You may well be able to get away without the makeup air in an older less tightly-sealed house. But do be aware that without it, when the fan is on full blast, it CAN pull air from sources you really don't want it to be pulling from - like your chimney/fireplace, for instance.

As for the fan placement over the stove - the fans are powerful enough that they draw air in the general vicinity - my fan is set farther back than the front of my burners, and certainly isn't as wide as the 36" wide cooktop, but believe me, it does a good job sucking up everything in the vicinity! (On full, I always wonder if it's going to take dinner with it!)

As Sophie says - you do need to ask yourself if you need so much firepower. It's got more than my Thermador, which certainly has more than enough for me! Even using a wok, I don't generally have the big burners on full blast. Maybe getting the water boiling for a huge pot of corn on the cob - but that's about it. And that's with LP, not natural gas, so my BTUs are actually lower than the specs for NG.

To me, your kitchen looks pretty contemporary, rather than historic - which is fine. It's not a big kitchen, either, so if you start changing materials it's going to look visually cluttered. If you're only changing the stove at this time I'd just go with stainless and it will look like it belongs. When your fridge dies, then give some consideration to what you want to do - a counter depth fridge with integrated panel would be a worthwhile consideration. Viking, Dacor, Wolf and Thermador, and some GE ranges are made in the US as well. If I was buying a range instead of the cooktop/wall oven we have in our new house, my fave is the GE dual-fuel; we got one of those for our Toronto house when the existing gas range died. Best of both worlds.

Kendrah - search on this site for Make-Up air and you'll find everything you need to know about the concept. I'm surprised that your father didn't mention it. We have a 30" BlueStar platinum and installed a Prizer hood with 1200 CFM. We have a short duct run but there are two 60 degree turns.

Prizer hoods also come in colors and with interesting decorative features - hammered copper, brass trim, utensil rails, strapping etc. plus the infamous color choices and you can also have a custom hood crafted for your kitchen.

How quiet are the Prizer fans, maire_cate? Nothing in their specs about that. Ours is a Zephyr, but it's not an under-cabinet model, so wouldn't fit in Kendrah's kitchen without removing the cabinets above. I'm not bowled over by any of Zephyr's under cabinet options which have enough oomph for that stove; unless she wants one that looks very much like what she has now, only with more cfm, in which case Zephyr might be worth considering. Mine is very quiet on the lower settings, which you'd use for normal cooking. It also has 5 power levels - the top one is pretty loud, but that's the case with most powerful fans. So that's another thing to consider.

Just looked up the London Flat Prizer hood ...yikes. I think it's more than the Bluestar range!

Paddy - I don't have any decibel ratings that I can give you. DH did
speak with an engineer at Prizer/Bluestar who offered some tips about
insulation, the location of the remote blower motor and Fantech
silencers. On the highest setting it is noisy, as you might expect but
we've only used the high setting once or twice.

Just in case it would make any difference to the venting reqs- here are Ilve and Bertazzoni ranges- they come in lovely colors and have many fans as well- not quite as heavy breathing on the fire breath though.

Ilve, which comes in many colors:

Berta:

I would do the deep red! Live it up and have fun!

Does anybody know of other gas ranges made in US that are not fire breathing?

Sophie - Great question of why we wanted a fire breather: We wanted a Blue Star because our two biggest criteria were 1.) Made in the US and 2.) All knobs, no digital. Seems that the gas ranges made in US are all professional type ranges. Of these professional type ranges we decided on Blue Star based on the comments on Houzz about their durability, longevity, and low need for repairs. Plus, we live in Philadelphia, an hour and a half from Reading, PA where they are made. There are a lot of Blue Stars sold around here and a lot of technicians familiar with Blue Star if we need repair. If you have ideas for a non-fire breathing made in US range, I'd love to hear about it. Clearly I didn't know what I was getting into with a Blue Star.

Blue Star 30" RNB Installation Manual Recommendation of 300 com

Paddy - Here is the excerpt

"Proper ventilation is highly important for good operation. This appliance must be installed under a ventilation
hood. We recommend that the hood should be six inches [150 mm] wider than the appliance, however, it is not a
requirement.

A strong exhaust fan can create a vacuum in the room. For proper air balance, work with your dealer and/or
contactor to properly size your hood and its exhaust fan. It is recommended that your exhaust hood be powerful
enough to move a minimum of 300 cfm."

We live in Philadelphia where you can practically build a new house without a building inspector. We have about 10 inspectors for a city of 1.5 million people. It is horrible and the reason why buildings here collapse and kill people. So, I seriously doubt there are any codes about Make Up Air, nor would they be enforced. So, what I need to do, as with everything else in our house, is do research on what is healthy and safe and make our own decisions.

It sounds to me like if you have to worry about a vent sucking up air from your fireplace, then the vent is too powerful. It is hard for me to imagine that our four burner stove, which we don't often use all four burners at the same time, is going to create enough NO2 to require that kind of force. That is why I'm so curious to see if there are guidelines that correlate BTU, NO2, and CFM. Are people doing overkill on their hoods if they have a four burner stove and get a 600 - 1200 suck monster?

The look of our kitchen and temptation to put in a whole new kitchen...

Oh how a few days can change my perspective on what I want. (Cause lord knows I don't need any of this.) A few things to know about me:

1. I value reusing, low impact on the environment, and. made in USA.

2. I value longevity.

3. I'm a cheap skate with a biggish bank account. We often make do because it is better for the environment (and we don't feel like dealing with the stress of incompetent contractors) though we at the same time buy higher ticket items if they are better built.

4. We love an older aesthetic.

Never would I have chosen these cheap ass made in China particle board cabinets or awful appliances, but they were only three years old when we moved in and it seems so wasteful to rip them out. We did, however, have to do major kitchen structural renovation when we moved in, decided to install a powder room and during the process learned our kitchen was sitting on two piles of brick piers on top of 6 feet of coal ash. The joys of buying a home from 1850. We took everything out of the kitchen, had a new foundation put in, needed to put in new floors (reclaimed heart pine), and used the same appliances and cabinets (ugly), though in a different configuration to allow for the powder room, as such we needed new countertops to fit the reconfiguration. These are reclaimed marble slabs from the changing room in an old 1800s fire house that was being demolished. The sink, faucet, dishwasher are new too and made in USA.

Out of my desire to not be wasteful we are replacing things one at a time when they break but now it seems also ridiculous if we need to start reconfiguring a cabinet to fit a vent, and buying stainless to match other things I dislike in the kitchen. Why not start somewhat a new? Keep the floors, get new cabinets and appliances? I don't love everything about all of these kitchen, but I'm attracted to the looks as a whole:

Nice wood cabinets.

Forget the contemporary elements - the butler pantry vibe is great.

What a pretty color blue.

Too much country kitch for me but love the warm family feel. It reminds me of the other side of my kitchen that I like near the windows with Hitchcock furniture, Audubon print, and scrappy old table.

Is the fridge behind this pine chest? If so, the most attractive fridge I've ever seen!

A rehabbed Chambers or O'Keefe and Merit would tick off all your boxes too.

This is not rocket science. Before firing up the Blue Star for heavy use, crack a window opposite the range to provide "make-up air".

Kendrah, you can give your old kitchen to Habitat for Humanity if you're worried about just throwing it away. ;) (Or put it on Kijiji for free...I guarantee there are many options and it won't end up in landfill if you do that!)

Bluestar are contradictory re: venting requirements then - the quote I put in my post above is from their own website. There are other rules of thumb (including the one that Bluestar use that I quoted - 100 cfm per 10,000 BTUs for gas stoves) here: https://www.todayshomeowner.com/how-to-calculate-kitchen-range-hood-fan-size/

As for the vent sucking up air from the fireplace - if you have a new(er) house that is very well sealed, as we do, then the air has to come from somewhere - the fan is creating a vacuum. So...if the fireplace is the only non-tight item, then it will potentially backdraft from there. Because our fan is capable of over 600 cfm and the Ontario building code requires makeup air for anything over 500 cfm, we had no choice. While we might have been able to get away with a fan that was slightly under 500 cfm, and we did consider that, we couldn't find one that was as quiet as the Zephyr (very important to us - this is an open plan main floor) and that we liked as much appearance-wise. I wasn't willing to spend more on the fan than I'd spent on the cooktop!

As I also noted, it appears that Viking, Dacor, Wolf and Thermador, and some GE ranges are made in the US as well. Sub-Zero/Wolf are the same company and they are definitely made in the US. We have a Sub-Zero fridge - they're built like tanks and have a reputation for lasting a very long time. Our Thermador cooktop has knobs. Dacor have knobs. Like you, I've no interest in controlling my burners with a touchpad!!

My GE range has knobs for the stove, although it has electronics for the ovens. Enough BTUs to feel on the cabinet handles to either side, and a central burner so you can slide your pans however you need, but not enough dragon to require a jet vent. You don't need to get totally wild...

I looked into GE and as far as I can tell, their electric ranges are made in USA but not their gas. This is an important factor to us.

Paddy, Are the other knobbed, made in USA brands you mentioned any less fire breathing? I just assumed all of these pro appliances are equally intense. Also, the Blue Star RCS has fewer BTUs so I guess I could consider that.

My friend works for a kitchen design and build place and is coming over tomorrow night to help me brainstorm.

And yes, we love giving pieces of our house away to Habitat and on the free listings on Craigslist. Very satisfying.

My very ordinary gas range is a Maytag and they are made in the USA. The burners are controlled by knobs though the oven temp, and timer are digital. It is a very basic gas range. My hood is a 390 cfm insert inside the wood hood (as seen in the pic of my kitchen).

The vintage style hood in the picture I posted above is a 300cfm made by Vent a hood. However, it is 42" and I don't know if they make it smaller:

http://ventahood.com/index.php/products/premier-magic-lung/ml-undercabinet?id=361&model=CLH9-142

I understand your priorities. I reused my original cabinets for many of the same reasons.

I think you could work with what you have and make it more vintage. You can have the center panel removed from some of your cabinets for the glass cabinet look. You might want to use a beaded /frosted glass to help hide things in the cabinets. You could also shirr fabric behind the glass, but that is too country for some.

You could do a beadboard backsplash - very economical - and go up to the ceiling behind the sink. You could even do a few shelves on each side of the sink. I made shelves at low cost using fir joist for my basement kitchenette - I used the beadboard wallpaper rather than the real thing in this kitchen:

https://www.houzz.com/photos/my-pics-work-in-progress-phvw-vp~65270573

The Whitehaven apron front sink can be retrofitted but unfortunately it is expensive.

Kendrah, the specs on my Thermador cooktop (and they make ranges too) show fewer BTUs than the Bluestar I looked up. Our burners top out at 18,000 BTU, and even with LPG (liquid propane gas, before someone asks ;) ) they're still way hotter than one needs for most cooking tasks. I rarely use them full blast. As jhmarie notes, most of the ranges will have electronic controls for the oven - but that's ok with me. I don't use the oven anywhere near as much, and for an oven it makes sense - you may actually want the options that a touchpad allows (convection on or off, various broil settings etc. etc.) - I certainly use them and would find a knob-only oven control limiting. You might want to have a look at the dual fuel option from GE - it's the GE Profile PC2S920SEFSS. I don't know where it's made, but it's a really good gas cooktop with electric oven, giving you the best of both worlds. The oven is a good size too (5.7 cu. ft). I did a lot of research before we bought it (for the house in Toronto - now occupied by our sons) and it's been great. It was replacing an all-gas Maytag that croaked.

Because of my experience with the GE dual fuel, I was interested in GE wall ovens, and the one I got for our new house gets very good reviews from users. None of the really high end wall ovens had anywhere near the user satisfaction and they cost a whole lot more. I prefer to spend where it makes sense (our Sub-Zero fridge & freezer columns were a splurge for sure, but not one I regret for a second) but not where I'd be getting a less for a lot more money! Interestingly, the first place I went - Caplan's in Toronto (more or less the go-to high end appliance dealer, or so they want you to think) - were barely interested in helping me (What? Was I not dressed well enough? LOL) and tried to push Dacor ovens on me, which I'd already ruled out because of lousy reviews. Went to Tasco, the other option in the GTA with a good selection and what a difference! Not only did they not push, they were really helpful and had a lot more on display too. Caplan's seemed to think I should just order stuff sight unseen.

Also - do you really want open burners? They're harder to clean than the sealed burners on the Thermador! In a commercial setting where you want the really high heat, maybe they're the way to go, but Thermador have some ranges/cooktops with 22,000 BTU sealed burners. As do other high end options.

Kendrah - I wouldn't spend money on the cabinets (ie: adding glass) if they are not good quality. If someone has no money to spend on new ones and it's the best they can do, maybe - but otherwise, it's a bit like putting lipstick on a pig, and it won't change the functionality of your kitchen one whit. Your kitchen is pretty small, so any changes you make should be thought out carefully. It doesn't appear that you have a lot of options because of where the windows and doors are located without making changes to plumbing etc. (and that's always fun in an antique house...not). Of course, if this whole stove thing has now led you to think that you want to redo the kitchen, then the best thing is to draw up a floor plan (use graph paper) and take pics from all angles and post them here for some thoughts/input. You may(probably will) want a kitchen designer to help too; that's the usual advice given when it's a major redo. But it's good to collect ideas and refine your direction beforehand.

The BS RCS only comes in SS and you want a color. And I completely disagree that open burners are harder to clean than sealed burners. I think they are much easier. I think everyone has a different view of what is "easy". They are super simple to pull apart and wipe down.

My Prizer hood is not very loud imo. I think all hoods are kind of loud honestly and mine isn't anymore so the other ones I've heard at friends w/Vent-a-Hoods and Broans. But that's just my experience.

Kendrah, I'm 173 cm (5' 8") and the hood hasn't bothered me. If I was 190 cm, it would likely be an issue.

Hood height was discussed reasonably thoroughly here: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/height-above-gas-range-should-the-vent-hood-be-dsvw-vd~421046

Jerry - Do you happen to know the distance between your stove top and your hood?

Paddy - I so love the phrase lipstick on a pig and come back to it over and over again with this kitchen. I agree, no use in modifying really cheap cabinets. They would probably fall apart if anything were done to them aside from tightening the screws that are always coming lose on the hinges. If we do something with the cabinets it will be to give them to charity and get new cabinets, well made by a local carpenter most likely. Big bucks but I believe in using our money to create local jobs.

You are so right too that our kitchen is massively limited by the windows. And, we actually changed the plumbing location when we redid the foundation and don't want to switch it again. The sink used to be in the middle of the room and there was a backstair case in the kitchen too. I love back stairs and would never have taken one out, however, these had been walled off, only had five steps leading to nowhere, and took up the entire space of where the fridge is now and then some.

I suspect for us a kitchen redo would only involve getting new appliances and cabinets located in mostly the same places. It could make sense storage wise to have a built in bench with storage along where the bird picture is hanging and maybe have a longer, more narrow drop leaf table. Something like that.

I think it is wise to consider new cabinetry and consult with a kitchen designer now to explore your options. A counter depth fridge w/panels would be a great improvement; built in micro; open shelving each side of a farm sink etc.. You will find well built US made alternatives. Wolf and Sub Zero are solid, reliable, great choices.

Kendrah, just short of 30". Because it's a Vent-a-Hood, there's no baffle.