Since moving into our home in August we have been garage sale shopping like it is our job on the weekends and trolling our local Craigslist for furniture deals. Craigslist has been an amazing source. I love being able to take something that someone no longer needs/wants/uses and giving it a new life in our house. Our favorite new acquisition? A 1940s Wedgewood stove with two ovens, brolier drawers, and a griddle.

The stove was being removed from a kitchen with more modern appliances on the way, and we were happy to ditch our newer stove for this larger, older model. The stove that came with our house worked fine, though it clacked loudly as it struggled to ignite the gas range and let's be serious, it doesn't look half as cool. In the former owner's home our stove looked fairly clean, I could tell it would need a good scrubbing but I was not prepared for the incredible mess I would have to deal with when it was pulled from its longtime home. When we came to collect our Wedgewood stove it was covered on both sides with years of grease and grime. Every knob housed a greasy build-up, the chrome was dull and rusty, inside the oven was covered in, well, you get the picture. This thing had to be well cleaned before we could install it. Above: Our stove after some scrubbing, but still far from clean!

I have cleaned ovens before, but they were never such lovely vintage specimens and I hated the idea of spending several hours with super toxic cleaning solutions. With a bit of internet research I found that vinegar was a recommended oven cleaner. I grabbed an assortment of sponges (from abrasive to soft), a jug of vinegar and set to work. Beginning with the body of the stove, I used a sponge and a bowl of vinegar to attack the dripped grease horror show. It took me four hours of scrubbing and rinsing, but the vinegar did a great job cutting through the grease. I smelled like vinegar, but I was not asphyxiating on toxic oven cleaning products so this was a preferable way to work. The knobs soaked in vinegar as I scrubbed everything else. When it was time to clean them, I used a toothpick to pry stubborn grease from tiny cracks. Inside the ovens the vinegar did a great job removing years of grease and soot. Once clean, the original baking instructions printed on the oven doors was perfectly legible (and very helpful if I ever want to cook well-larded veal).

Now that the enamel and interior of the oven were clean and restored, the chrome looked dull and sad. Another surprise cleaning product? Baby oil is great for shining chrome! Using a soft cloth and baby oil, I polished the door handles and drawer pulls. The stove top easily came back to a glorious shine and I found that areas that seemed to be rusted were mostly caked on and burned grease which also polished up nicely.

After two days of scrubbing and polishing our new old stove looks marvelous! The burners poof on like magic, and can even be adjusted to a small inner flame for simmering. It looks and works better than the newer stove (which we, of course, posted on Craigslist). I found a great website with replacement parts if you find yourself wanting to seek out an old stove. If you score one in need of repairs beyond cleaning, there are a wealth of places that will refurbish the entire stove---they can even fix and replace damaged porcelain enamel.

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