We figured that appliances would be easy. They all come in standard-sized formats to fit standard-sized openings in kitchens, and there are no modifications or anything so you should just be able to grab one off a shelf and go. We went to Albert Lee to pick out our stove, vent hood, microwave, dishwasher and beverage fridge.
On our first visit, we just wanted to go learn about stoves. I've been perpetually annoyed that most consumer stoves have only 1 big burner (as in, 1 burner big enough to boil a gallon of water or put a good sear on meat). Go look. Your [gas] unit likely has a giant burner in the front right, then gets progressively smaller going clockwise. The tiny guy is a simmer burner, useful for melting the most delicate chocolates. The other 2 are in some weird limbo zone. For anything you'd use them for, you can use your big burner on a lower setting instead. If you want to boil pasta and make a nice seared salmon for dinner, you're boned. Professional or semi-pro units usually come with more big burners, unlocking the meat+pasta scenario.
As usual, the sheer number of choices is overwhelming, and sometimes the sales associate is as well. We were greeted by a very energetic (and somewhat frantic) lady who agreed that Wolf makes great products, and then proceeded to show us pros and cons of lower-priced units. We came away mostly confused, and debating if we really wanted to dedicate $6000 of our kitchen budget to a single appliance.
On a subsequent visit, we got a new associate. Lindsey is awesome, if you are ever looking at appliances, go see her in the Bellevue store. She also agreed that the Wolf was great, though she definitely added that a lot of the price was just that it's very pretty. By then we'd decided "what the hell, it's either getting amortized over 20+ years or if we sell the house, it'll be a great checkbox" so we went with that. We also selected a hood, dishwasher, microwave and decided that a beverage fridge was not worth the $1000+ price tag for a nice built-in one. Lindsey told us that Wolf was coming out with new models in March, so quantities of the current model were limited. I put down a 50% deposit to make sure that ours would be ready when we started the remodel.
Our plans stalled for a while, then started back up suddenly when we switched contractors. We went back in to get our appliance order finalized, only to find out that the new timeframe wouldn't allow for the hood we wanted to be delivered on time. Well crap. Lindsey offered a similar model, but Marisa didn't like the edge details on it. Other competing hoods were significantly more expensive. Lindsey found a 3rd similar model at LuwaLoft (the scratch and dent store) and suggested we go look at it. Amazingly, somehow, this item was there and the dents were so minor that we wouldn't have even noticed them. I literally started shouting "sold sold. We'll take it" as they were showing it to us. We were that close to either slipping our project or getting a hood we didn't really like.
The microwave and dishwasher had arrived without incident and were hanging out in the garage. The stove was supposed to come with them, but I got a call saying it'd been rescheduled to January 7th. That was still well within our remodel timeframe so it was no big deal; after all, the stove can be the last thing to slide in. Then we got another call telling us it'd be January 25th. Nooooow, that was pushing it. Where was this stupid thing? I put down a deposit so it would patiently wait for us in its warehouse and arrive at a date of our choosing.
Turns out the Wolf distributor had messed up their inventory and seriously overcounted the number of units left unsold. It was so bad that they ended up going back to Wolf and asking them to make more of the discontinued models. Luckily they obliged, otherwise we'd have been up shit creek without a stove and scrambling for another one. Moral of the story: have tons of buffer time or contingencies if you get anything not made by a major retail company. Miele: on time. GE: on time. Wolf: not on time. Ventahood: not on time. 100% correlation.
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