23 Outdoor Valentine’s Day Décor Ideas to Spread a Little Extra Love

It’s a universal truth that home renovations, whether they’re major overhauls or minor touch-ups, can throw a wrench in your daily life and routines. Even the smallest projects can temporarily put a room out of action, not to mention the mess, tools, and supplies that come with the territory. But when it’s a kitchen renovation, the disruption can feel like it’s on a whole other level!

Kitchen renovations often include the removal of all fixtures and appliances, making family meals difficult. Thankfully, our excellent readers have offered up their best advice and insights from their own experiences and are here to share their wealth of knowledge with you! Take their recommendations and lessons to heart before you begin your renovation, particularly regarding planning and communication. Learn from their journeys to ensure your home update goes as smoothly as possible. We promise you won’t regret it!

Seeing a microwave above the stove is so common that many of us don’t think twice about it. But once it’s been brought to your attention, you escape noticing it in every home you visit. If you like the access and ease of a nearby microwave, this could be a cause for celebration. If you’re firmly on team hood vent, it could be a source of frustration.

One of the biggest complaints we hear about mounting a microwave above the stove is the cheap look it can give to your kitchen. It is also difficult to clean (maytag.com/blog/kitchen/how-to-clean-microwave-filter.html), doesn’t vent well, and can become an unintended focal point. On the plus side, it’s centrally located and easy to access and saves space compared to the dedicated counter space you would need to give up elsewhere. As you’ll read below, our contributors had strong feelings on both sides of this heated issue, so we’ll leave it to you to read through their opinions below and form your own conclusion based on the evidence in our gallery below.