Installing A Sleek New Microwave & How We Chose It

When we first bought That 70s House, it came with somewhat matching appliances. They were all silver, but the fridge and the microwave were faux stainless or stainless look. While this wouldn’t have been my first choice, there was no real reason to replace them. Then one evening about a month ago, Barry went to use the microwave. When he pulled on the handle to open it, the handle flew off! I heard him yell from other room and came running to see what happened.

The handle completely broke off! 

Now I had a reason to replace at least the microwave. I am not going to lie, we have thought about replacing the appliances before. After we finished our kitchen face lift, the fridge and the microwave didn’t seem to fit in anymore with their plastic handles and finishes. Because of cost, we never pulled the trigger on buying a new set, but did manage to narrow down our options a bit for when we were ready. At the top of that list was KitchenAid. We currently have a KitchenAid dishwasher, and previously had a KitchenAid fridge in our old house and really like them. One of the things I love about our KitchenAid dishwasher is the 3rd rack. Yes, I said 3rd rack. It’s one of those things you never knew you needed until you had it. It’s ideal for lids and smaller or flat things that just get in the way. Now that I have it, I don’t want to ever live with out one and KitchenAid is one of the few brands that offers it. Another appliance nuance for us is the dimensions of our fridge opening. It is counter depth and 72 inches tall. In order to get a built in look, a replacement fridge needs to fit those dimensions well. Again, KitchenAid is one of the few brands that matches that criteria. Knowing we would like to replace all the appliances someday, it made sense to go with a microwave that would match our wish list for the rest of the kitchen. This is the microwave we chose.

Once the microwave arrived, we got to work installing it. First, we took down the old microwave.

While reading through the installation instructions, I realized the new microwave was a quarter of an inch taller than our old microwave. This meant we needed to remove a row of tile from our backsplash in order to install the new microwave. Barry was afraid this might happen, but he was ready and willing to use one of his favorite tools we bought when we replaced our flooring on the main level.

This tool worked like a charm! Barry was able to remove just one row of tile from the backsplash without damaging the rest of the tile.

With the tile trimmed, we moved on to installing the mounting bracket. This part was pretty easy but getting the microwave up was another story. The microwave itself was only 1/16 of an inch narrower than the cabinet opening, so it was pretty tricky getting it to go in. While the microwave wasn’t super heavy, it was awkward to lift that high with such a small amount of wiggle room between the cabinets. After we tried a few times to lift it into place, I decided we needed some help. I went out to the garage and found some scrap wood to lay across the countertops. This allowed us to set the microwave down to line it up before lifting it onto the mounting bracket. This was SO MUCH easier!

And there it is. We have a new microwave!

What a sleek design and no more plastic handles! It almost makes me want to run out and buy the matching fridge……….almost.

And this handle…..swoon! It might just be my favorite part!

We have only used it a few times so far, but the one thing we noticed immediately was how quiet it is compared to our old microwave! Since it’s so clean, we are afraid to make it dirty……..do you remember the last time your microwave was this clean? I certainly don’t!