Should I go with a 24" or 30" oven/microwave in my kitchen remodel?

(39 year old woman here)

I would seriously consider not buying a home with a 24” oven. It might be a deal-breaker. I don’t consider myself one of those people who needs every convenience or who would tear out a kitchen because it’s “outdated”, but I cook a lot and a tiny stove/oven seems miserable to me.

6+ years is quite a bit of time for you, though. I think you should do what you like and are comfortable with for now.

I should add that we’ll have a nice 36”, 5-burner gas cooktop next to it. I’m not sure if that changes the equation for anyone?

That might even it out for many people. I doubt most people bake much these days. I do, but I think I’m in the minority.

24” is very small! I’d go with the 30”. Better for home resale, too.
(Think about how hard it would be to roast a turkey in a 24” oven.)

Well, since you would be taking the kitchen with you, when you move, it does not really matter, does it?

I would go with the 30 inch since you are thinking of selling the house in the future. I’m not much of a cook, but I do have Thanksgiving at my house and couldn’t put a turkey and fixings in a 24 inch oven.

When you sell your house, you will have to sell it to two people who will be living there. The woman will check out the amenities of the kitchen while the guy is checking out the garage. The woman won’t be much impressed with a 24” oven.
Why sell yourself short?

Since you have a 24” built in already, leave it there.
I’ll assume you have a cook top, not a full-on range. Remove the cook top and supporting cabinetry and replace it with a full-on range with 30” oven and you and whoever may buy the house can have the best of both worlds at their disposal.

30 inch if it’s a house in America that’s at least 2,000 sq. ft. Even if it’s smaller you can justify the 30”. Especially with the 5 burner cook top. In small apartments you can go smaller, because generally small apartment owners don’t think in terms of making a Thanksgiving turkey or 48 cookies at a time. There is a 27” option, depending on the space you have, but 30 is safer.

There are smaller ovens top to bottom that are still 30” across. Kitchen Aid has one that doubles as an over or microwave. So, you can do a double oven and it takes up the same space as a microwave and oven. What brands are you looking at? Here’s the Kitchen Aid combo I’m talking about. https://www.kitchenaid.com/major-appliances/wall-ovens/combination-wall-ovens/p.30-combination-wall-oven-with-even-heat-true-convection-lower-oven.koce500ess.html

Thanks for all of the great feedback. I think we’re going for the 30”. We’ve been looking at several brands including the Kitchen Aid stuff, GE, and Whirlpool among others. The kitchen is a little tight in some dimensions, so fitting a 30” wide floor-to-ceiling cabinet will basically max out the available space on that wall. It’s doable, but the entrance to the kitchen won’t feel as open, though we should still have 36” of walking space at the narrowest point.

It should be beautiful when it’s done, and hopefully some of the other improvements will draw your attention, like the big, frameless window over the sink that extends all the way down to be flush with the counter.

@gorillapaws I would say the entrance to the kitchen is very important too. 36” is indeed the smallest I would go. If you can’t get 36” I might say go down to the 27” oven.

If you are changing all appliances I highly recommend not going with Whirlpool. My Whirlpool refrigerator is terrible, and many of my neighbors have problems also. Our houses were all built 1–3 years ago. Kitchen Aid should be ok, even thoughts it’s the whirlpool family of products. My dishwasher isn’t great either. Not much fits in it, and I don’t like the filtering system, it doesn’t have a third rack, etc. Also, the stainless doesn’t clean up well on my Whirlpool. Mine is builder grade, maybe Whirlpool has better products, but I wouldn’t buy Whirlpool now. Our oven, microwave, and stove do work fine though. I just have a regular electric smoothtop.

I had GE and Samsung in a Kitchen 5 years ago (the both have very shiny stainless so the two went together well, Whirlpool is a different color stainless) and I was happy with the GE, but only had the house a short time. Upgrade to GE profile for the dishwasher, it’s great.

Oh, on the fridge, whatever brand you buy, if it will have water in the door, don’t buy one that circulates the air from the fridge to the freezer. My Whirlpool the water tastes like food! First time I’ve ever had this problem. Some fridges have dual cooling systems so the air isn’t shared between the two compartments. It also helps to keep each part at the right temp and humidity when they are separate. I wouldn’t be surprised if my GE back in the day didn’t have this feature, and I didn’t have a problem with it, but after having a problem I would only go twin/dual cooling systems if buying new. Unless, you don’t have water in the door, then it’s less of an issue, but still the dual system seems to keep food fresher.

I uploaded some images of the renders I created with Ikea’s tools. This is the floor plan. It’s not a perfect representation as I had to use placeholder items for some of the stuff. The cabinet fronts will be this. The lights will be 2 of these over the peninsula and his bigger brother over the dining room table. We’re trying to pick a quartz countertop (it will be either solid, bright white, or white with a little bit of texture). The plan is to have it waterfall down over the edge of the peninsula. I’m thinking the backsplash might be along these lines.

Here are the renders from a few angles. You have to use your imagination a bit to picture it. The Ikea tool isn’t perfect so there are weird glitches such as the overhang on the counter being a different height from the rest of the counters, etc.

angle 1
entrance angle
angle 3

@JLeslie Thanks for the feedback on the appliances (and the design in general). Very helpful.

@gorillapaws I love the lighting and the cabinet choice. I really recommend rethinking your oven placement. Most people are right handed and having no space to the right of the stove top seems very limiting. Your sink is to the left, so granted the preparation will likely be on the left, but in terms of elbow room it’s not ideal.

FYI I hear Kitchen Aid makes a very good dishwasher, I didn’t want it to sound like I’m completely down on all the Whirlpool family of brands. Their appliances look beautiful too. I haven’t had Kitchen Aid in my house, but I know people who have.

@JLeslie “I really recommend rethinking your oven placement. Most people are right handed and having no space to the right of the stove top seems very limiting.”

I’ve moved that stupid thing all over the place, and unfortunately there aren’t that many great options. If I come up with a place to stick the oven, then I need to find a different place to put the stuff it’s replacing. If I could get away with a 24” oven cabinet then there would be more space to the right of the cooktop, but nearly everyone I ask says I should stick with a 30”. We could do a cooktop/oven range, but I’m really not a fan of the look or functionality.

The space kind of requires compromises somewhere (aesthetics, functionality) and having an oven cabinet so close to the cooktop may be the lesser of several evils. I’m thinking maybe we can cheat the cooktop placement inside it’s cabinet to give an extra inch or two on the right-hand side?

@gorillapaws. I get it! Planning a kitchen is tricky. Always there are compromises. Does the entrance to the kitchen have to be where it is, as it is? Can you come in directly from the side next to the counter that’s next to the fridge? Rather than at the angle? I’m assuming that isn’t easily changed, but thought I would ask.

On the fridge side of the dining, is there a solid wall there?

Any frustration is definitely directed at the kitchen and not you, @JLeslie. I’m super grateful for your input! The large opening leads to a sunken living room, and the doorway on the same wall leads to the hallway/entrance (which also leads to the living room). The doorway next to the oven leads to a staircase heading downstairs. We’re going to open those up slightly by removing the trim, and taking them up as high as the structure will allow, but otherwise we’re pretty much stuck with the general layout.

As for the appliances, we’ve been using a Kitchen Aid fridge and love it, as well as a Frigidaire dishwasher. We already picked up the Kitchen Aid cooktop, so all that’s left is the hood and the oven/microwave.

^^I wish I had the floorplan, but I think from your description I understand. So, the large opening you are talking about is where the dining/kitchen table is, and it’s sunken as you leave the dining area, is that right?

There is a staircase opening and an additional opening to a hall? So, in the corner between these two opening is wall, it’s not one big open space?

Edit: Did you consider putting a wall oven in the island?

Another suggestion a wall oven in the lower cabinetry next to the fridge with counter on top for work space, and a separate microwave above? If you can, I would move the fridge over more inline with the end of the island so you can fit the oven. You can get a microwave that is typically over the stove, which is much cheaper than a wall microwave, and still gives you work space below the microwave.

Sorry for another post. I would seriously consider the 27” ovens if you stick with your set up. The set up from a practical standpoint is good for using the kitchen and convenience. I’m not so sure most people would even notice it’s 3 inches smaller. Not sure if that makes upper cabinets tricky though. Right now you have no uppers to the right of the hood.