Our story so far: My husband, an expert at stalking Craig’s List for another man’s trash, found a display kitchen that would fit our space in the old Methodist church just right if we could find appliances in the right sizes and finish.

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Tyler went to work without delay looking for a 36-inch-wide used range. We’d decided we wanted a new refrigerator, but we could live with a used stove. Craig’s List came through for us right away. Tyler found a “luxury” Jenn-Air six-burner convection oven in stainless steel (our finish of choice). And it was only eight years old.

As with the castle door deal, we drove ninety minutes south, this time in lightly falling snow. We arrived at an enormous house set among several blocks of bungalows. The seller told us he added a second story when he remodeled his entire house, and now he was replacing his luxury stove with a countertop cook-top and set of double ovens.

We removed the door, knobs and burners for transport, and the seller and two young men who looked like they’d rather be playing Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto helped us load the range into our beat-up pickup truck. We drove straight to the rental unit we’d secured a few days earlier (because our five-thousand-square-foot church wasn’t big enough, I guess), and our new appliance became the first resident—on a short-term basis, we hoped.

Stove, check.

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Tomorrow: Early-morning dumpster diving yields rewards. Read about it here.