House Post: Goodbye, microwave; hello, vent hood

We executed a long-anticipated kitchen project last weekend, with my dad’s help.

See, this is the microwave that was installed over the stove when we moved in.

How amazing (and also gross/grimy/greasy) is that?!

It didn’t really work. Well, it might have worked. It didn’t work when we moved in. Then, after we lost power, it randomly turned back on. Which was vaguely terrifying, and so, we never used it as a microwave. We put another one in another part of the kitchen and called it good. We used the vent function occasionally but it sucked.

I looked everywhere for a replacement that would fit in the space. I spent hours and hours and hours googling, calling stores, scouring online forums, you name it. They just don’t make microwaves this small anymore, at least not in the precise way that I needed one. So I gave up on buying a new microwave and decided to swap it over for a vent hood instead.

Getting the old microwave out was a total pain in the ass. So many things in this house are overbuilt. The microwave was no exception.

It took several hours, because first there was the microwave and then there was the microwave housing.  They were both stuck in from having been there for so long, overly securely attached, really heavy, you name it. It was a pain.

Then, once we got it out, we found that they’d never finished off the wall behind the microwave. To say I was grumpy would be an understatement. So I had to prime and paint the stupid wall. I had nothing left of the actual kitchen paint, so I used a pale gray that is upstairs in the library. It’s a delineated space, so it actually works ok.

Then, the vent hood went in!

It’s pretty great. It’s less obtrusive than the microwave, actually functional, and it felt good to check something off the list.

I’m pondering backsplash for that wall. I haven’t decided yet. There is a kitchen remodel in the medium-future (maybe another 5 years) so I don’t have to make any final decisions.

So far, I took one pass through Home Depot’s options and liked this one the best. I’m not going to decide or do anything until May, though, because my April is about to be not worth living with the finale of a major work project.