I'm totally OVER built in cooking appliances!

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sudslock1

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Joined
Dec 22, 2010
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147
Location
St Louis
A couple years ago I bought a house that was built in 1956. The house was mostly unmolested as it still retained its original pink bathroom with all the original tile and pink fixtures and its hardwood floors intact and original woodwork and doors in place. The kitchen was mostly untouched with its original cabinets and countertops still there but had been "modernized" by the use of BOL black wall oven, cooktop, dishwasher and cheap stainless steel sink. Also, the floor in the kitchen had been torn up and cheap vinyl rolled down in its place so that it would be "softer" on the previous owners feet. I've worked on painting and cleaning the house since then an now its time to give the kitchen is unrenovation if you will. I have a beautiful pink GE refrigerator and have obtained a pink KA dishwasher and kitchen sink. The countertop is Formica White Skylark (pink and gray boomerang design) with steel edges. There is also pink backsplash behind the cooktop area so I'm sticking with pink for appliances. The issue Ive run into is that when the house was built they used a 24"cabinet to hold the wall oven and a 39" cabinet to hold the cooktop(which doesn't allow a switch out for a Frigidaire Flair or any other range as they are usually 42" wide). Its next to impossible to find a true 24" wall oven to fit the space. I found a pink Frigidaire wall oven and cooktop Deluxe set but the cooktop is a little rough (noticeable chip on the rim and dented control panel). Ive found numerous GE cooktops (with remote push button controls) and wall ovens but all GE wall ovens are at least 25" wide and will not fit into my cabinet. Does anyone out in automatic washer land have or know of another option? I even toyed with the idea or removing the cooktop cabinet and putting in a range but nothing will fit the 39" space except a Chambers stove and I think that will look silly with a wall oven next to it. Furthermore, I've even thought about removing the whole wall of cabinets and just go with a range and try and cobble it together and make it look original. I'm truly stuck at this point as I was really hoping to make the kitchen as original as possible but I'm not sure if that is going to come true. Ive attached photos so you can see what I'm talking about. Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Chambers

Only issue with Chambers cooktops and wall ovens is they really don’t go into cabinets. I’d have to remove the countertop and modify the base cabinet for the cooktop and still would have a gap. And the chambers “wall” ovens seem to sit on a cabinet and not in one. Or at least that is how they look when I have seen photos of them installed. By the time I do those alterations I might as well tear it all out and get a free standing range.
 
Too wide

My oven cabinet is 24” wide and up against a wall on one side. There is no give at all. Anything over 24” will not fit.
 
Hotpoint

produced a wall oven into the mid-1960's that only required a 21-15/16 inch cutout.  We had one in a house built in 1964 (pink appliances) and the cabinet for the wall oven was 24 inches wide.  You might find one of these out there.

 

lawrence
 
My house is the same year as yours and I would have the same issues (24" wall oven) if I wanted to go vintage.

 

Your cabinets are in nice shape.  I would love to do what you're doing.  I like the height of the wall oven as well.
 
Something like this Hotpoint "should" work in a 24" cabinet.  These Hotpoint built-ins were used in several subdivisions in NE Atlanta in the late 1950's.  They do turn up on Atlanta CL.

 

Also, GE produced wall ovens for 24" cabinets starting in the mid 1960's and continuing for a couple of decades.  Not overly popular, but necessary for the existing home market as older wall ovens wore out or as owners updated (especially to get the self-cleaning feature).

 

lawrence


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Frigidaire ovens

All GM produced Frigidaire ovens were made to fit a 24" cabinet, even the double oven models. I saw an early french door model in Stainless on Search Tempest, I believe in PA
 
My bad

With the exception of the Flair and the rare 30” oven! However the more common 24” ovens are plentiful even today. I assume that is due to the over building Frigidaire was known for. I could be wrong.....
 
Wall Oven

I hope you wont be offended but I would rip the part with the oven/cook top out and start over as it is not a good arrangement to start with to have the cook top jammed in such a small space beside those two tall cabinets.

There are then many options open to you if you do - you could have a conventional range of whatever size, age or colour you chose, or the Flair which you particularly mention with a smaller cabinet beside it. A Flair (or that style) might not be a feasible option though, given its proximity to the door to the right, given that the cook top needs to pull out. Or a larger wall oven and a cooktop set into a larger counter space to give you more working room. I think it would make the room look more spacious too. You would need to be careful if you wanted the re-use the pink tile although as there does not seem to be any pink tile in the other shots of the kitchen maybe that would not be such an issue. And of course the doors, if not the complete cabinets, can be re-used to match the rest of your kitchen and keep the integrity of the look.

I guess my point is that you should not allow your choices to be restricted by something that was not a good design in the first place.

Al
 
I believe GE also had 24" wall ovens in the early self cleaning years for situations just such as yours so that a customer could transition from a 24" gas to a 24" self cleaning electric with just a rewiring job. 
 
Copper Tone

I have the same Copper Tone pulls as you do. With matching hinges. Every time I see an HGTV show where the kitchens have those pulls, they always say "Oh, how dated lets rip it all out". I like the pulls. Test them with a magnet, they are actually steel with copper plating. Mine were pretty grungy and I ordered new ones that did match. I kept the hinges because the new ones did not quite fit. My oven is 27" and I found a new one to fit (GE) and new coil electric cooktop (GE). I would rather keep the dated look than try to shoe horn in new cabinets which would probably be lower quality. Have fun.
 
Hotpoint wall oven!

I had the same exact model as the lower oven without the window! It was very basic but cooked real good! It did have a light when you opened the door and didn't heat the kitchen up when it cooked like a gas range! It was about a 1968 model cause that was when the complex I lived in before this one was built!

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