We've continued our work on this project, making a daily, multi-mile commute to the part of town that houses our local Expo (Home Depot extension) and The Great Indoors (Sears extension). They have lots of cooktops, dishwashers, ovens, etc. All those things you need when you're redoing the space that provides your culinary sustenance.

So on Sunday we wandered through Expo, having gone there to look once again at countertop materials, sinks, faucets, all those things you have to think about when you're redoing a space. En route from one renovation destination to another, we passed through the appliance department. We weren't especially looking for necessary items, but we happened to pass by a couple of oven units that were sitting out, abandoned and on sale, in the middle of the aisle. Hmmmm, we thought, stopping in front of the Bosch double-oven unit that was "Slow Moving" (the reason stated for the "sale" price). Seems we'd seen good things about Bosch units, gee, this looks like a reasonable price... We didn't buy it, but we did go home and research it.

The following day we went back and put our money down on the first appliance in our kitchen renovation. A Bosch 455 double-oven unit, top unit convection style, bottom regular thermal. Originally priced at around $2200, sale priced at $1399. It was almost Memorial Day, so the salesman asked if we had any military connections that would entitle us to the additional 10% discount. Well, I grew up in the military and my dad is a disabled Viet Nam veteran, does that count? Of course! So we measured the oven, went home and measured our oven space, then went back and bought our first renovation appliance! It will be delivered to our living room sometime in the next 10 days. (We don't especially want it in the living room, of course, but construction isn't really scheduled to start for another 2 weeks...

In case you're interested in what we're doing, here are some pictures of our current kitchen. We're not changing the basic configuration, as that would involve extensive, MAJOR reconstruction. We'll be satisfied with far less. Here's where we are now:

http://catgoyle.botech.com/newkitchen.htm

We hope what will emerge on the other end will be a lighter, brighter space to engender and enjoy more Perfect Meals. Stay tuned for further reports.

Cori