Kitchen appliance difficulty

[pb4uski]

Would you care to elaborate on that?

 

[MichaelB]

Would you care to elaborate on that?

Well, now that you asked, this

I thought so too, until MichaelB mentioned his wife's height, then I remembered the difficulty that my friend has with her oven being to high.

We need to get someone here who can look at the installation and compare the options of cutting up or down. Then we can make a choice. The current oven is already high for her, so I assume we'll cut low, but both options are still open.

 

[pb4uski]

Whew!

 

[Dimsumkid]

I just did an oven replacement like what you're doing. My situation involved a 1963 double electric oven electric connected on the bottom to a single oven connected on the top. I had to adjust the cabinet wall from 24" to 27" wide. Based on what I had, the wall cabinet had extra space on the bottom to accommodate the electric wire whip with is about 1" thick, and was hard wired into my appliance. I ran the whip to a new junction box on the back wall and the new oven had it's own wire whip that I connected to the box. Worked out well for me and should apply to your situation. I would recommend looking at taking space from the bottom as you have a filler strip and lowering the support cleats to holds the oven weight. If there is space, then no cabinet face mods needed. Otherwise, you have dead space below the bottom cabinet which you can take if needed, you could leave the cabinet face alone but it would be lower than the cabinet connect to it. Or you could trim the bottom of the cabinet face (using a router or sander?), but tape the area first to avoid any chip outs. Most people rarely ever look down this low to notice any small flaws.

 

[swakyaby]

I also did an oven/microwave replacement that required cabinet work. The home was custom built for the previous very tall husband and wife. The built-in microwave above the oven was so tall, I had to use a step stool to reach it! When I was admiring a new Kitchenaid combination oven/microwave unit at Sears, I was referred to a contractor who could do the cabinet modifications to bring the height down to a more user-friendly level. He came to our house, proposed what he could do, and gave a reasonable estimate.

Alas, when he tried removing the existing oven and microwave, he failed to notice that the units were not attached to each other, and the microwave began sliding off as he was removing the oven. He managed to catch the slippery microwave before it crashed to the wood floor, but not without gouging the custom oak framework in 3 places on the adjacent doorway. He apologized, and said he would repair the damage.

He completed the interior cabinet work and installed the new combination oven and microwave. He then said he would return to fix the damaged oak frame. He never did return, and he never mailed us a bill for the significant amount of work he did. I guess he decided it was a wash.

Our luck returned when we discovered our neighbor was a retired woodworking teacher. He proposed making new cabinet doors above our now lowered appliance that perfectly matched the style and wood stain of the surrounding cabinets, and he repaired the oak frame. He quoted us a fair price, and the work was absolutely professional. I could not have been more pleased with the work.

 

[Slow But Steady]

In a similar position, we went for the new kitchen. I wish I had done it 10 years earlier. I always hated the original builder cabinets.


It was definitely a budget buster, though.