Transporting the Cornue Stove
I ended up taking the day off of work today, to coordinate transporting the stove we purchased on Saturday back to our house. Given that we weren’t 100% sure we would be the new owners of the stove until after the sale started… a lot of things have happened over the last few days.
I was able to talk to movers on Saturday, and ended up using Pack-Men Movers again. My first impulse was to try out The Professionals, an outfit we’ve used before. But their quote was exceedingly high (a three man crew for just one item)… and I found an old post that talked about how happy we were with Pack-Men, when we did our big storage move.
The blog ends up being helpful like that, sometimes.
I got to the location around 10:00 AM, and got to see what the place looked like after the weekend. Keep in mind this was a demo sale, as opposed to a standard estate sale – so a lot more of the structural things were missing or sold or removed.
I learned that the young couple we met (who showed up with a huge trailer) ended up working over the weekend, and spent the night on Saturday. Sounds like a lot of dedication and hard work, but they got some really nice floors for an excellent price.
There was another guy who started to work when I arrived, taking apart the dishwasher. Since this was close to the oven, I opted to let him finish before starting (to keep out of his way). During this time, I just hung out and chatted with Terry, the owner and President of Before You Demo.
I got to hear a lot about how he got started, and his work history – totally fascinating stuff. Back in the 80’s, he was gutting his own house and couldn’t find anyone to do a demo sale (where structural parts of the house were also sold). So he did it himself. While that business was handed off to a family member afterwards, it came back to him around 10 years ago and it’s been his sole focus ever since.
On top of that, I learned that Terry had business in a lot of industries: construction, mortages, and even had his own radio show for many years. I learned he’d been in business for himself, in some capacity or another, since he was thirteen. I had a blast talking with him, and feel like I could have spent the remainder of the day just chatting and hearing his stories.
The two of us were able to pull out the stove, without too much hassle. I was able to remove a few more pieces from the front, to reduce the overall size/depth for the movers.
The electrical was easy to do (we just unplugged it). Although I’m definitely not used to whatever power source this things requires, as it was a four prong plug.
I struggled a lot with the gas line. Terry was watching me for a good part of things, and was providing instructions along the way. He said things like “I’d do it for you, but then you’d never learn.” I think he and Bob would likely get along quite well.
I struggled to free the flex tube from the gas line, and Terry ended up getting a larger set of channel locks for me to use. Eventually, I got it loose enough to where it would move… but after a bit, the flex started turning in on itself… so I had to loosen the connection from the stove.
I also struggled with this a bit, and Terry ended up helping me directly. I think I would have eventually got it, but his help (and guidance) made things a lot quicker.
The movers from Pack-Men were earlier than expected, but I was able to disassemble things prior to their moving this thing out of the house. I was in awe, as they more or less just walked the thing out using just some shoulder straps.
The stove, in its new home! The back wheels are a bit mis-aligned (and our floor I’m sure isn’t quite level). But this is pretty close to where it should finally be. It looks so tiny in this photo, but I really have to stress to you that our kitchen is pretty small… and when all’s said and done, this will definitely take up a good portion of the space available.
Burners and knobs and things added back on. Again, it looks petite here… but it’s definitely taking up some space. Looking forward to the day when we can fire this thing up!
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