This week for Building 101 I’m giving you the lowdown on our appliances. What we chose, why, and even how much they cost.

Range

If you can believe it, the second thing I picked out for our entire home was our 48″ range. The first thing was the kitchen window. Ha! It was made in Italy by a company called Ilve. It’s not only gorgeous, but its packed with tons of features too. So many that we actually haven’t even used them all yet and we’ve used it for the last 9 months. It has 7 gas burners, one of which can be switched out to a griddle. The oven is electric and has so many great options- grill, broil, bake, convection, rotisserie, and a few others that I’m not sure what they even are.

Hood Vent

The hood vent is by Faber and it’s been amazing. I never knew how much I would appriciate the 4 spotlights. They really light up the cooking surface! The fan works really well too. I like how it’s on a knob so you have a lot of flexibility on suction and noise.

Tip: When deciding on how high to mount your vent remember to actually reach up and make sure you can reach all of the controls comfortably. When we were building I had them lower ours about an inch and a half so I wasn’t on my tip toes.

Refrigerator

Our refrigerator is by Bosch. Can you spot it? We decided to invest in panel front appliances because I really wanted to elevate the look of our kitchen. Also, no more wiping sticky fingerprints off stainless steel. Hallelujah! I think adding panel fronts the single most impactful thing you can do in a kitchen. Now that I’ve seen, in person, how panel front appliances take a space to the next level I might even consider downgrading other selections to fit them in the budget. Maybe opt for quartz counters instead of natural stone? The model we chose is a counter depth fridge, which means its shallow. I actually like this feature more than I thought I would because food doesn’t get lost in the back to die. Being more shallow I thought we’d also have less room inside, but it’s actually really tall so we have plenty of room.

Tip: When designing your kitchen consider adding a bump out behind your fridge to accommodate a regular depth fridge so you can still get the built in look.

Dishwashers

We continued the panel fronts on the dishwashers to keep it feeling cohesive. We did two Bosch dishwashers and opted to upgrade to the CrystalDry which dries plastic dishes like Tupperware, or in our case kid dishes. It was only about $100 to upgrade, worth it for us. They’re also so quiet! When they’re running a red light shines on the floor to let you know it’s on, they’re that quiet. If it’s in the budget and you have more than 2 kids I would consider adding a second dishwasher to your kitchen. Crunch the numbers between purchasing another cabinet or set of drawers versus a dishwasher. I was surprised to see it wasn’t that much more, especially in the grand scheme of building or renovating a kitchen.

Washer & Dryer

Our washer and dryer were the hardest appliances for me to choose. I read a lot of reviews and did a lot of research and ultimately landed on these by GE. The washer is amazing. It has so many great wash cycles and features. A few of my faves are the auto dispense detergent, the UltraFresh Vent technology, and the quick wash cycle is actually really quick!

The dryer is also really good. It’s extra large so our bigger comforters don’t get wadded up too tight and can actually dry. The Wrinkle Release cycle is really good and I also like that the lint trap is inside the barrel & not on top like our last dryer. Keeps lint management really easy, it’s the little things.

Budget Breakdown

Now for the part you’re probably here for. How much did all of these cost, anyway?

Not gonna lie, this is the first time I’ve ever actually added it all up. We paid for our range out of pocket which made stomaching the cost of our fridge a little easier to swallow. Though I honestly don’t remember it costing that much. I’m thinking we must have rolled over money from another line item.

Keep an eye out for another budget break down in the next several days… I’m going to be sharing the cost of our front yard. In the meantime you can find more Building 101 topics here.