The Great Appliance Hunt

It was Thanksgiving here in Canada last weekend and if you didn’t spend it at the Home Depot like the rest of the country then you really aren’t cool. Seriously though, it was busy and we had no choice but to spend our Monday shopping for new appliances. Let me rewind to Sunday to explain myself. Sunday afternoon I was in full on cleaning mode when I decided to do a really deep clean of our gas range. I threw the self-cleaner on for the oven and got to work on the burners with a toothpick and my favourite cleaning products from Norwex (if you haven’t heard about Norwex yet look them up – I don’t sell the product but I buy almost everything they have and love it). After an hour and a half of deep cleaning the top, I turned off the self-cleaner and turned my attention to the oven. Once it cooled down a bit it needed to be wiped down. One of my favourite tricks is to clean with baking soda, vinegar, and water. So I put baking soda all over the glass on the door and then immediately dumped a mixture of water and vinegar on it. CRACK. Immediately the glass cracked from the cool water/vinegar mix because of course it wasn’t anywhere near cold enough. Ugh. Not just any crack but an actual hole in the glass.

Since our appliances are about 14 years old we decided to go ahead and replace both our range and our fridge (we already replaced the dishwasher when we moved in 2 years ago). Since we had the luxury of appliance shopping sans kids, we checked out a number of retailers, including: Trail Appliances, Best Buy, Home Depot, The Bay, Sears, the Brick, Lowes, and Costco (a few of these we just looked at online). From what we found, pricing was pretty equivalent from place-to-place and brand-to-brand; Lowe’s even has a price match + 10% reduction if you find something cheaper than what they carry.

In considering colour/style, I was very interested in the black stainless steel, mainly for the following reason:

See that my friends? Those are little finger and handprints and they are everywhere. Doesn’t matter if I clean my appliances every day, or every hour, or every 5 minutes. They somehow reappear immediately after cleaning. For that reason, I am drawn to the black stainless steel. We checked out a few of the “smudge-proof” stainless options but they still smudged and showed prints. When I asked the sales associate about this he said that it wipes away easily (cue laughter); obviously he doesn’t have a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old. Other colour options that I love are the matte black and white ice but we found there are many more black stainless options, and better yet, they are in our price range.

When it comes to the range, we were looking for a gas cooktop, a large oven, easy to clean (a self-cleaning option), and of course it has to be pretty. When we started looking we noticed many of the gas cooktops have a griddle/flat plate (I’m not 100% sure what to call this exactly) feature which I love, so this was also something we determined we needed.

(Source: bestbuy.ca)

For the fridge/freezer, it is most important to us to have a bottom freezer, french door style. Also, we were looking for a water dispenser/ice maker. For the most part, we are keeping it pretty simple so we don’t break the bank. One feature that we saw that I really just don’t understand is the door-in-door design. Can someone please explain how this is more convenient than just opening the main door? To me this seems like an expensive gimmick.

(Source: bestbuy.ca)

Speaking about gimmicks, one that I really do like and think is cool, is the built-in-touch screen on the fridge door. I wish this was in our budget but it’s not.

(Source: bestbuy.ca)

While I wasn’t expecting to have to spend so much money this week, it’s always fun to get to shop and buy new appliances. Here are the ones, we’ve decided to buy: