Woot! We did it — we scored a stainless steel range hood on Craigslist. It’s a heavy-duty, pro-style JennAir model (valued around $350), but we walked away with it for $60. That kind of find makes you do a little happy dance. It looked mostly unused — it even still had some of the peel-off protective film on the underside — though it had clearly been stored without perfect protection, which left a few scratches on the curved hood. Those blemishes are almost certainly why we got such a deal; in near-mint condition it could have easily sold for $200 or more. Since we plan to build a custom wood hood cover around it, the scratches won’t matter at all.
The listing was actually marked $65, but we tried the classic “how about sixty, we have cash” approach when we arrived. It worked. The hood appears to have been purchased and hardly used, and because of those superficial scratches we were able to bring home a pro-grade vent for a fraction of the usual price. Our plan is to construct a wood frame that will attach to the wall and enclose the JennAir vent — a custom wood range hood cover that blends with the kitchen’s design while letting the industrial vent do the hard work.
We’ve checked out prices for ready-made wood hoods and were surprised by how expensive they can be. That pushed us toward a DIY solution: build a wood hood box around the purchased vent and customize the shape and finish to fit our kitchen. We haven’t settled on the exact hood-box profile yet — some designs are more squared off, others have a tapered “stem” at the top — so we’ll probably tape out a few shapes on the tile to see what feels right before committing.
Along with the hood, we picked up two pendant lights for the peninsula. We found them at a local lighting outlet (The Decorating Outlet on Midlothian), the exact style we’d been admiring in a recent blog post. These pendants retail for around $129 each from mainstream sellers, but the outlet had them for $60 apiece. That meant we bought two for the price of roughly one elsewhere. They’re clear-glass industrial-style globes that will really stand out above the peninsula and be visible from the dining room.
We surprised a few friends by choosing oil-rubbed bronze for the pendant finish. Since the kitchen already has a lot of nickel and stainless accents — hardware, appliances, and the industrial stools — adding a contrasting dark metal creates a layered, intentional look. We like mixing metals when each finish appears more than once so it reads as a deliberate design choice rather than an afterthought. To keep the balance, we’ll introduce a few more touches of oil-rubbed bronze elsewhere (a door knob, a curtain rod in the adjacent room, or small accents) so the pendants feel cohesive with the rest of the home, especially with the mocha cork floors providing a warm base.
Next up on our to-do list: hang the pendants, wrestle the hood into place, build the custom wood hood cover, add some floating shelves, finish trim work, lay cork flooring, install the dishwasher, and tackle a handful of smaller tasks that always seem to multiply as a project progresses. We’ll take it step by step and share updates as we go. If you’re planning something similar, a few tips that have helped us: measure twice before cutting, tape out mock shapes to visualize scale, and plan how metal finishes will repeat through adjoining spaces so the overall design reads as intentional.
We’re slowly making progress — like dedicated tortoises on a kitchen-renovation journey, laptops tucked away as we inch forward. Have you had any luck finding budget-friendly range hoods, outlet lighting steals, or other great Craigslist or outlet finds lately? We’d love to hear about your score and any tips you’d recommend for building a wood hood cover or mixing metal finishes in a kitchen.