The... (Amazing)... Stove

Anyone who knows us at all knows we are in Month 21 of Kitchen Renovation. Pulled down walls. (Hard plaster walls with steel mesh lath.) Built pantry. Relocated ironing-board closet. Built large closet for cleaning items. Removed cabinets to relocate refrigerator. Moved same. Recycled removed cabinets to create island. Purchased Corian top for island and remaining cabinets. Purchased Lazy Susan cabinet for corner of kitchen.
(Favorite part) Hiked through woods to find the huge sink we saw there TEN YEARS AGO. The one we saw so long ago was destroyed, beaten with a sledgehammer or something, but found another just like in the same woods. Got permission to have it (free) and hauled it to truck, built ramp from timbers in woods, took it home, cleaned it. Cleaned it and cleaned it and cleaned it. Built cabinet with superstructure to support it to right height. (Weighs a ton.) Installed reproduction faucet from Ebay, had other original parts re-chromed.
Relocated pipes and wiring to fit within new walls. Built walls around same.
Because portion that was formerly back porch had lower ceiling than rest of kitchen, rebuilt those ceiling joists. Sheetrocked ceiling back. Sheetrocked cavities in walls and ceiling where walls had previously connected, but were now gone. Hired plasterer to put final hard coat on newer sheetrock for consistent finish.
Installed recessed halogen lighting, all with rheostats. Built tiny wall beside back door for light switches so they wouldn't be a blight on new, long walls.
Removed three layers of flooring and sanded virgin pine floors. Stained and poly'ed.
Removed back door and door frame. (Enter heat and flies.) Built new, square! doorframe. Took back door and screen door apart, planed pieces, and rebuilt to be like-new doors.
Pulled up flooring on former back porch. Rebuilt floor joists to remove slant that was there for rain runoff. Pulled up porch flooring to use in cavities from places in floor that previously held walls.
Tiled area where borrowed flooring. Removed laminate from backsplash and replaced with subway tile.
Removed sash windows whose mullions were on a horizontal plane and replaced them in vertical position, so they will slide side-to-side. Mullions are now in vertical plane as they are in other windows of house. Replaced panes broken in transition.
Built soffit over back porch (now kitchen) windows with recessed lights. Built copper rooftop (outside) to protect area from rain.
Received as a gift from a neighbor, the jelly cupboard that originally belonged to the lady of this house. She had long ago passed it along to neighbors and they felt it should come back home.

You will notice there are no pronouns in the above discourse. That is because 99.9% of them would be, "He." Dear Husband has done virtually all this work with my poor contributions being only cleaning up to prepare dinner. Many, many days, I had to ask him to stop work so I could vacuum the plaster chunks off the stove, wash it down, scrub the counters and begin preparing supper. His patience is immeasurable.

Along the way, I fell in love with a particular stove. You can see this model at:
http://www.vintagestoves.com/stove/yellowhighvue/

I went so far as to call and talk with the folks about getting one of these stoves. Of course, I wanted a red one, and of course, it turns out to be the most expensive color, go figure, and it came in at a cool $6,500. Well. Thanks for the info.

DH has been trolling Ebay and Craigslist ever since. Not being small-minded, he has ventured into towns far from home on Craigslist and found this same model listed in a town a thousand or two thousand miles from here -- my geography skills not being what they should be, even though my taste in stoves is excellent.

I just couldn't see putting a smooth cooktop in this kitchen. The house was built in 1933. We have this wonderful 75-year old sink and the beautiful wooden floors. We have the original drop-down ironing board and have copied its recessed doors in the new cabinets he has built. A modern cooktop would just be heresy.

So. He emailed the guy with the stove and made quite an eloquent plea for the stove. The guy called. I begged. Just a little.

Tonight we finalized the deal. He contacted shippers who will crate it, drive it, and deliver it to the house. The shipping cost, by the way, is only $75 less than the cost of the stove. Yet, the total cost, with shipping, is about what we would have paid for a new cooktop and oven. He is setting himself up on Paypal so we can "pay with confidence."

This is the stove I mentioned in Sunday night's blog. The stove I asked my friends and family to pray about. You see, some folks don't pray about this stuff. They'll pray about debt and relationships, but not about a stove. I don't look at it that way. In my mind, we shouldn't even have debt, anyway -- I'm not sure the dear Lord cares about debt any more than he does our gardens or cars or -- or stoves. So, I prayed and I asked you guys to, too. Maybe you did. All I know is, after all this crazy kitchen work, living through so much crap, we are getting the stove of a lifetime. How cool is that.