Things are heating up.

New (used) range

We've been living without a proper oven for the past three and a half months, since the electronic controls died in December.

This has only been possible because we have a counter-top convection oven. You may recall this picture from my post about "doing without and making do":

It just occurs to me that my favourite pot is in most of my kitchen pictures.
I should get product-placement payments from Le Creuset 

I could have gone on indefinitely, even though baking a birthday cake meant I had to do each layer separately -- which means twice the time and probably twice the energy. But even Steve had enough.

I had procrastinated because there is a remote possibility that we will renovate our kitchen once Steve retires (and therefore can do the labour). If that happens, we may convert to a wall oven, rather than a range.

But, realistically, that won't happen for at least a year, and I really don't want to continue with our sub-optimal solution for a year or more.

So on Saturday, I checked Kijiji and found an older model (2005) double-oven range for $300. We brought it home on Sunday. It's not perfect (I wish it were stainless steel with a dark top instead of white), but it seems to work just fine, and I'm really happy with the second oven, rather than the stupid drawer that our other ovens have had. (Do those drawers ever pull out smoothly for anyone else? I detest them!)

It's been years since I bought a used appliance, but I kind of like the idea. And it still feels excitingly new to me. I am, however, keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't roll over and play dead too soon.