Appliance thread S/O - does size matter for resale?

[robinsmommy]

I have appliances on the brain now. We have an old house (approaching 90), with the typical old house small galley kitchen. We have a counter depth 30" fridge, and swapped out the 24" DW with an 18" Miele when it died. Are these appliance sizes going to hurt us when we go to resell the house? The house has 3 br, 1.5 ba and a non-egress bedroom in the basement.

Personally, I'd rather have cupboard space than a bigger dishwasher. Ditto with the fridge. And when I say the kitchen is small, one side has the range, fridge, and a 12" base cabinet (along with two doorways) - the other has a double sink in a 36" cabinet and 60" of cabinets/counter to either side. It is not the tiniest I have seen, but new construction is usually a lot bigger. We do have a lovely kitchen nook, though. We are looking at downsizing to a smaller house in a couple of years, and considering a light remodel soon to enjoy the kitchen more before we go and help with resale.

How important is size in home appliances? How small is too small, esp for a smaller family-sized house?

[pastrygirl]

For me, the important thing is is there room to upgrade. I bought all new appliances when we moved, and had to stick with a small fridge because of the space. It’s been fine, but when we redid our kitchen, we made the fridge space big enough for a regular fridge. We haven’t felt the need to buy a bigger fridge, though!

[twowhat?]

I would say your appliances are appropriately scaled for your small kitchen, and if anything it will help resale because your kitchen won't look like someone could barely squeeze in a fridge. I think it's more important for a small kitchen to look as great as it can, design-wise, and there are tons of cute tiny kitchen pics on pinterest (I personally love layers of soft whites - what color are your cabinets?). If you have a lovely nook, even better!

[robinsmommy]

I would say your appliances are appropriately scaled for your small kitchen, and if anything it will help resale because your kitchen won't look like someone could barely squeeze in a fridge. I think it's more important for a small kitchen to look as great as it can, design-wise, and there are tons of cute tiny kitchen pics on pinterest (I personally love layers of soft whites - what color are your cabinets?). If you have a lovely nook, even better!

Our kitchen is currently white cabs with deep yellow paint on the walls and sort of a Wedgewood blue in the nook. The cabinets are the arched doors popular in the 90's, I was debating about new doors (Shaker style, of course, given the era of the house) - but given the amount of work to drill holes and mount new doors to existing cabinets, I think it might be easier to get Scherr doors on new Ikea cabinets than get new doors. Scherr cuts the holes for you for the hardware, which would be the messy part that could go horribly and expensively wrong for a DIY.

Lots to think about. It is hard to set things up with changing out appliances in mind - someone could do a little bigger fridge, I suppose, but probably not a 36" one. I don't really want to have a 6" cabinet next to the DW, to allow changing it out - they are almost useless as skinny as they are.

I think we also cook more than most people do - maybe that is part of my mind set. We don't do a lot of pre-prepped food - most of the time, our dinners are from scratch - dried beans and whole veg to soup, that sort of thing.

[legaleagle]

I have appliances on the brain now. We have an old house (approaching 90), with the typical old house small galley kitchen. We have a counter depth 30" fridge, and swapped out the 24" DW with an 18" Miele when it died. Are these appliance sizes going to hurt us when we go to resell the house? The house has 3 br, 1.5 ba and a non-egress bedroom in the basement.

Personally, I'd rather have cupboard space than a bigger dishwasher. Ditto with the fridge. And when I say the kitchen is small, one side has the range, fridge, and a 12" base cabinet (along with two doorways) - the other has a double sink in a 36" cabinet and 60" of cabinets/counter to either side. It is not the tiniest I have seen, but new construction is usually a lot bigger. We do have a lovely kitchen nook, though. We are looking at downsizing to a smaller house in a couple of years, and considering a light remodel soon to enjoy the kitchen more before we go and help with resale.

How important is size in home appliances? How small is too small, esp for a smaller family-sized house?

If you are replacing cabinets, personally I would go with a narrower sink (but deeper than standard) to get more cabinet space or a full size dishwasher. What size is your fridge now? Our fridge is in a nook - previously it was a pantry, this allowed us to have a regular depth fridge but it's max 33" wide and can't do a french door if we wanted - and I think that's fine. I think even a 30" full depth fridge might be ok.

[robinsmommy]

Yep, I am debating between a 24" D sink and a 33" work station one. It'll probably be the D for cost.

The fridge we have now is 30", but counter depth - we replaced a 30-33" regular depth one when we moved in. It make a big difference in the looks to me, esp as the fridge has retro-looking handles and "fits" quite well. The shallowness of it also just makes the kitchen feel bigger - but someone could replace it if they wanted. I don't really want to shift it to the open end of a cabinet run - it is right hinged and cannot be reversed.

[legaleagle]

I have a 24" D sink in a 27" cabinet fit 12 years and I've been quite happy with it, FWIW.