I blame Old House Journal Magazine. Because if they hadn’t done their job really well, I wouldn’t have even known this oven existed. But one day I found myself, flipping through my new favorite magazine when I came across the ad. And there she was in all her glory. Positioned behind a heavily tattooed, hipster of a man who clearly meant business and the tagline “These aren’t your grandmother’s appliances”. I was sold instantly.
Now, all it takes is one glance at my Instagram to realize I don’t live in this world. I live in a world where my imagination takes hold of my sanity and tells me things like “if you had more animals in your life you could start talking to them like a Disney Princess.” And the more I can actually create that magical world in my actual life, the happier I am. And this oven took me instantly to the cottage farmhouse in the fairy woods of my deepest desires and fantasies. The only problem? Sometimes I have to drag my husband and kids along unwillingly into my fantasies.
And Tyler is by far the hardest to convince that he, too, needs to be surrounded by whimsy and fantastical beauty at all times. Just take a look at my livingroom, which is currently of vomitous mass of rainbow organized books, delightful treasures and every video game device, controller and whatnot imaginable. Which is what you get when an artist marries a video game programmer. The combination of right and left brains don’t always fall together so nicely.
But anyway, when I discovered this oven, and knew I wanted it – no, NEEDED it – I thought for sure I would have myself a struggle convincing Tyler he needed it too. But, maybe it was the new house honeymoon period we were in. Or the excitement of the new kitchen coming together. But he was surprisingly not against the idea. In fact, he was actually willing to check it out.
Now, because this particular oven was so rare, and we live in Vermont (otherwise known as the most rural state in the nation), I couldn’t just pop over to my local Sears and pick one up. (Wait, does Sears even exist anymore? How do people get appliances these days anyway?) I was able to find a small list of stores that had these ovens on display and one of them happened to be in Montpelier. So Tyler and I took a trip to check out these ovens.
What we found when we got to the oven store was probably the most vermont store imaginable. It was literally a store with ovens. No, fireplaces. Lots of fireplaces. And a couple ovens. Owned by a guy named Freff. He was quick to tell us it was “just Freff”. Maybe his name was actually Freff Freff. Regardless, he was part of a band that can be found on YouTube. Which of course we looked up and discovered a small group of 70-somethings in their very own garage band. You do you Freff.
Anyway, when we asked Freff to show us the Elmira Stoves, he paused for a moment and said thoughtfully, “yeah, I think we have one of those.” Clearly this wasn’t a stove that gets asked about a lot. And he brought us to the stove. And when I say “the stove” I mean THE stove. Because there was one. Just one. Was it the exact one we were looking for? Not exactly. It had a woodburning unit on it and was the larger version and had an electric top. But it was the same idea.
And it was AWESOME! More beautiful than I even imagined. Glorious even.
So, we took the next step. If you are thinking the next step was to buy it, you’d be wrong. The next step was to PRICE it.
One by one we went through the features we wanted and Freff wrote it all down one by one along with us. And then he filled in the grand total.
And I walked out, crushed, because I knew Tyler would never agree to paying the price for this oven. Defeated, I popped that little dream bubble and considered it one more thing to add to the growing list of things my unrestrained fanciful mind wants and will never have.
So, how did we end up actually getting the oven? To this day I don’t know. Maybe it was because Tyler knew that in order to make me happy he was going to have to choose between the oven and a menagerie of singing farm animals. Or maybe he just knew this was the perfect stove for our kitchen. Or maybe he didn’t want me moping around like a wounded puppy dog over this oven, but before I knew it, we were signing off on it! I couldn’t believe it! It was actually happening…
….in 6 months.
Now this is a small operation. A small company that’s run out of Ontario, Canada. And this isn’t “your grandmother’s appliances.” Meaning it looks like a Victorian oven, but has all the conveniences of a modern day oven. And it’s custom made. And it’s at the end of a pandemic with staffing shortages. So, I’m pretty much picturing the hipster guy in the ad hammering away on each and every order all by his lonesome.
But we were patient. We had our old oven, so we weren’t in a huge rush. We were just excited. And so we waited.
And waited.
And when November came around, we were getting super excited because we were about to get ourselves the most amazing Christmas gift.
I messaged Freff to see if he’d heard anything from the manufacturers. And got no response.
Now, we’ve lived in Vermont long enough now to know that getting pretty much anybody to respond back to you around here is pretty much a crapshoot. So I messaged him again. Still nothing. I was about to think Freff ran off with our down payment to take his band on the road when Tyler got a phone call. Apparently the stove was’t going to be done until February. Yep, 3 more months.
Now, at this point my mom was like “maybe you should just get a normal oven” and I can’t blame her. That would have been so much easier and far more reasonable. But I am not known for doing things the easy or reasonable way and I was set on this romantic fantasy oven and, well, I’m pretty darn stubborn.
And so we waited some more.
And I can’t tell you if at this point we were relieved when Freff called us in January saying our oven was ready. At that point, it was all so ridiculous that we didn’t even believe it. But he called and said the manufacturer was going to call us and schedule a drop off time.
A week goes by. No phone call.
We call Freff again. “Hey Freff, they haven’t called us yet.”
Freff calls them and calls us back. “They’ll be calling by the end of the week. Oh and are you ready to pay the rest of the bill?”
“Not until I see an oven.”
Another week goes by. No phone call.
Freff calls us this time “You get that phone call yet?”
“Nope.”
So Freff says he will call again.
A week goes by and nothing. Tyler is able to find something online tracking our oven. It’s in Pennsylvania. That doesn’t sound like it’s ready for delivery. That sounds like it’s in another state.
We call Freff again. And at this point he just gives us the number of the manufacturer.
Finally we get ahold of them. Our oven is in New York at that point. They had had difficulties with delivery because they were so short staffed, there was never anyone at each location to receive the oven. But finally, finally, 10 months later, our oven came through the door…
…and it didn’t fit.
It was too wide for the area. Too wide for the carefully measured cabinets. Too wide for the counters that hung over just a little too far.
Many told us to simply trim the counters. But we had another idea. We ended up lifting the oven up so that it sat above the counters. I personally like this look better. Protects the counter edges and helps level the oven. The platforms we used to raise it stick out a bit but I’m okay with that.
We also have some adjusting left to do with the wall vent since it doesn’t line up with the new oven placement. But Tyler has an idea for that that I figure I would let him and the carpenter buddy up to figure that out. My job now is to bake all the bread and cakes and cookies!
And that’s not a bad job!
