Buying an Exciting Giant Oven and Rearranging My Living Room and Dining Room

I mentioned in my recent post that I had so many things breaking at a time. What I didn't mention, though, is that my stove had been breaking for a long time, and it wasn't a new thing. I was just suffering with a barely working stove, making everything take longer since I could only cook two pots at a time, and one of those pots cooked very slowly, and the other burner sometimes would either try to explode or flutter out. The oven was problematic from when I got it. For some reason the steam dripping down the inside of the oven made the bottom of the oven rust and flake off from the very beginning. It was gross and I couldn't justify getting rid of it just for the aesthetic, so I kept my nasty looking oven for far too long. It was only after the burners were really affecting my life negatively that I decided I'd get a new oven. (And only once I was able to ascertain that I didn't need to buy a new fridge. I could live with two not so great functioning burners; I do not ever want to live without a fridge again- 8 days was far more than enough!!!)

When I was looking for an oven, I decided to see if I could find a larger one than what I had before. Because even when the burners were working, if I had a larger pot or a wok it often took up half the stovetop and I could maybe cook one other thing on it. As someone who does a lot of cooking and dabbled in catering for a few weeks last year (before my health issues didn't let me continue), I saw how much extra time it took me to cook when I was not able to use all my burners in one go. More burners, I knew, would be very, very useful for me even just cooking for my family, but especially if my body starts cooperating more and I want to attempt catering again. I'd seen stoves with five burners on them but the fifth burner is a small one in the middle of the other four, and it still has the same surface area as the standard stovetop, so it wouldn't help me at all, because you can't use them at the same time. So I decided to look for a stove/oven that had 6 burners, but all of them were ridiculously expensive, at least 3 or 4 times the price of a standard stove/oven, even the cheapest ones that existed. Then I looked on the price comparison website for a 5 burner stove, attempting to see if one existed that wasn't with overlapping burners and I found quite a few that were only about 75 dollars more than the standard one. I was shocked at how little extra five-burner stoves cost, even when they were extra wide. With only that different of a price, I knew I had to get it. 

The only thing was the width. My house is great, but it is small. The kitchen is combined with a living room and dining room, and I had to make sure that everything would fit. There is no nook for my oven, it just goes next to the counter, so I had no actual limitations in terms of size. I did, however, need to be able to fit my furniture into the room. My dining room table was next to the oven and I measured- at 90 cm (30 cm wider than my old oven, I think) it still gave enough room to have my dining room table there. But just barely.

I ordered it. So it would be tight. That's fine. I pull the table out anyhow for meals, more towards the center of the room, so I'd do that whenever our family would have a meal, I thought.

The oven arrived. It was beautiful! So big and wide and with so much room to cook! Exactly what I wanted!

But when I put my table next to it, I saw just how difficult it would be to have the table there. So I decided to switch it all up, and reconfigure my entire space.

This is what the space more or less looked like beforehand. (Picture was taken a few years ago, when we first moved in, with our old table and old chairs, and when we still had a rug on the floor, but the same layout. We also had a keyboard between the couch and where the person taking the picture would stand.)

I thought about just flipping it around and having the couch next to the oven and the table where the couch is, but then when I measured the width of the couch I saw that there would be very little space between the oven and the couch, and since oil splatters and things near the stove tend to get this sticky greasy residue on them (not sure why...) and because things can spill from the stove, I didn't want to have a couch near that, or that would likely ruin my couch.

However, we specifically had the shorter couch going across the living room glass sliding door so that it wouldn't block the exit. I couldn't think of a solution that would work. 

Then I thought to myself- instead of having the couches in an L shape with the end table between them, with the exit from the sliding doors to the side, I'd just separate them and have the exit between the couches. Then I'd be able to have the short couch against the same wall as the oven but with a decent space between them, and the long couch against the window, touching the opposite wall. The exit was perfectly accessible.

Though in theory that was fine, when I actually did that I found that the dining room table was blocking part of the couch that was across the window.

So then I switched the table with the keyboard, and voila- perfection! I played around a bit with the end tables, seeing where they fit in best, and saw that it was best to have one next to each couch, but not near the exit. I also had to play around a bit to see where to put the light, but found a good spot.

Here's what my living room/dining room/kitchen set up looks like now.

And from a different angle. 

And now a close up of where the dining area and couch meet.

And the whole table as well. 

It really has been such a pleasure using this new oven; while I got it for the stove top, being able to bake more pans at a time has also been such a blessing. 

The best part- that it was such a good deal and much more affordable than I thought it would be. $800 approximately. When people hear how much I paid they are shocked at how affordable it was! Totally worth rearranging my entire living room/dining room for this. It definitely will be a time saver and it already is making my life easier.

What is your oven or stove like? Separate or together? How many burners do you have? Are you happy with that size?