Wall oven vs. free-standing range?

[Esther B.]

I anticipate having to remodel a very small co-op kitchen in the Queens area of NYC, if the sale goes through. I definitely want a gas range. Whereas most of the renovated apartments I've seen in this complex feature the regular free-standing range, one of them had a wall oven on one wall and a cooktop on the other side of the kitchen. Is there any advantage to wall ovens and cooktops for maximizing small-kitchen space? Any downsides? It was an intriguing idea I'd never thought of, because my entire life experience with ranges has been the regular kind.

Thank you for any suggestions or sharing of experiences.

[NOCHEF&JUSTLOVESFOOD.YUM]

Hi Esther B,

I spend a lot of time at our office in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Land and apartments are very much at a premium. I think that theirs would make your new one look large. :)

Most of them are long and narrow. They suffer from lack of counter space and
storage cabinets. Most Dutch have a built in oven, with the bottom of the oven about waist high. This helps hang on to the food, gives more room for cabinets under and over the oven. They usuallly also find a space above the sink for a microwave and place a 4 burner cook top directly behind you on the other wall as you face the sink. Makes for "turning and doing" easier.

May I also suggest that a good slow cooker and or one of the newer pressure cookers would give you versatility without using much space.

Hope that helps some, let u sknow how it turns out?

[Esther B.]

The kitchen is 7'7" x 9'6". The short sides are where the cabinets and appliances are. Space is not the only issue in my remodeling problem. I am also on a shoestring budget for a derelict of an apartment. It is a foreclosure, and you needed to wear a hazmat suit just to go and look at it. It is the ideal location within the complex which grabs me, not the apartment (as of yet) itself. Kitchen and bathroom must be completely redone, cannot even be used. I went shopping just for fun yesterday and saw that wall ovens and their corresponding cooktops are way more expensive than just getting a regular 30" gas free standing range. So that is the way I'll probably have to go. A comparable single self-cleaning gas wall oven is about $600 just for the oven, and then the cooktop is like $500 just by itself. Whew! I already have a slow cooker, toaster oven, and microwave in my present apartment. I was thinking of having a shelf built for the microwave above the range. Why spend $400+ for one of those over-the-range microwaves when $2 worth of plywood would make a nice shelf for my nothing-wrong-with-it present tabletop microwave? I could get a decent gas self-cleaning sealed-burner free-standing oven for around $500-$550 (hitting a sale!). An 18 cubic foot refrigerator without an icemaker or those fancy spigots I'd never use would run about $700. I don't need a dishwasher, there's just me. So already there would be a savings on appliances, right?

I was thinking of getting used cabinets from a "green" construction materials exchange near here. You can get used components salvaged from demolished or remodeled homes for 1/2 the retail price. There are also salvage and surplus building materials stores around, where I would look into getting a bathroom vanity, medicine chest, and ceramic floor tiles.

I would do the spackling myself and hold a "pizza and painting" party of friends and colleagues. I bet that would save me like $1500 in painting costs.

I will have to find some websites featuring small-kitchen makeovers and give them some hard study. Bathrooms, too!

[Sadie05]

I have a Miela ( sp?) ( made in Germany) wall oven and above that is a microwave. It's Great! We luv it. We redid our kitchen as well. Very roomy now.