Kerri needed a new range hood, because the fan motor on her old one was dead as disco, and she opined (and I concurred) that it would be a better use of time to just replace the range hood entirely, rather than try to repair the old one (which was old and yucky, and a cheapie Builder's Special to boot).
The choice of a range hood was dictated by budget on one hand, and practical considerations on the latter. You can get some gorgeous range hoods by Miele and other manufacturers, but they're (a) fiercely expensive, and (b) very difficult to keep clean — perfect if you have a full time staff to polish your appliances every damn day, but impractical for normal people with jobs and kids and so on.
So, when we were wandering around in Lowe's looking at appliances, she pointed at a stainless-steel Broan range hood, and said "OOH SHINY!" (I should interject here that she had a preference for stainless steel, because the white paint on the old range hood had gotten dingy with grease and trapped dirt; we agreed that brushed stainless should be easier to keep clean.)
Since we opted for the Bosch dishwasher instead of the Miele, the budget had room for a reasonably nice range hood, so when I ordered the dishwasher at Wickford Appliance, I added the Broan "Allure 2" to the tab, opting to install it myself.
Getting the hood in proved to be a two-man job. I was able to get the old hood out without any real fuss, but noticed to my annoyance that the previous installation (done when the house was built) was definitely quarter-assed — it wasn't good enough to be considered half-assed. The cabinet bottom was recessed, and instead of being secured to cleats in the recess, the hood was hanging from drywall screws that had been driven into the quarter-inch fiberboard (!) bottom of the overhead cabinet. Then, the wiring passed through an unprotected hole in the sheet metal: no clamp for strain relief or even a grommet to keep the edges of the hole from abrading the wiring! So, snag #1: I had to go get parts and materials to do the installation the way it should have been done in the first place, rather than just being able to use what was there.
Off I went to the Home Despot to grab some materials: 1x2 pine stock to make cleats, wood screws, a wiring clamp, and halogen bulbs. Got home, ready to proceed, snag #2: the 1x2 was too big for the under-cabinet recess, and I had no bandsaw or table saw to rip the cleats down to the right thickness. Grr. Right around then, K came home, and lo and behold, discovered that she had a jigsaw in the closet (which saved us a trip over to her mom's place). Since I'd never used one before, she did the ripping (and an excellent job of it, too).
I then screwed the cleats into place, then it took the two of us a couple of tries of wrestling the hood in and out of the opening to get the mounting screw placement right (why they couldn't include a template, I have no idea), and now it's up!
A lovely hood it is, too - the fan is (reasonably) quiet and effective, and the halogens give great light. Mission accomplished!
