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By Rachael O'Connor
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The internet lost its mind as a woman showed off the stove in her kitchen.
"I think it's fun when something random gets people's attention, even when it's something silly like a stove," mom-of-seven Laura, 37, told Newsweek after her unusual oven went viral.
"We've been in the social media game long enough to know it ebbs and flows. It's always so random what makes people laugh or have strong enough opinions that something explodes in the algorithm!"
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Laura, who gave her first name only, shared a clip to her family TikTok account @tealhousefarmfamily on November 8, acknowledging she had "horrified a large portion of the internet" when her stove and oven made a brief appearance in an earlier clip.
She then examined the appliance, which is located in the middle of her Missouri kitchen.
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Answering why the oven is in the middle of the kitchen and why there isn't a normal flatback stove, she explained that when the farmhouse was first built in 1897, there was no electricity in the house. And, before a refurbishment, the second half of the kitchen didn't exist at all.
When the kitchen was extended, "they decided that this was the best place to put a stove."
Laura suggested it could be because the former owners did not want to put electricity in the walls, and in the case of the stove and island, "it comes straight up through the floor."
She insisted that despite the unusual set-up, the family is happy with the stove, and it prevents their small children from being able to reach the knobs. Regardless, the family was not in a position to be throwing away working appliances.
As she put it to Newsweek: "We bought the 1890s farmhouse nine years ago with the plan to completely renovate. And when you renovate, you just learn to look past the ugly and be thankful for what's functional!"
She added that since moving into the home, she and her husband have welcomed a little girl born with a physical disability, "so our money is better spent trying to make her living space functional—old farmhouses are not meant for people with mobility challenges—and things like an ugly stove are pretty low down on the priority list now."
Laura wrote in a caption to her video, which has over 15,000 likes: "Social media was ruthless yesterday about some kitchen design choices that were made decades before my parents were even born!"
But that didn't stop almost 2,000 people from sharing their thoughts in the comments, with one writing, "How I built in The Sims before they offered flat options."
"I was not prepared I was like oh it can't be that bad but yes. Yes it can lol," another commenter said.
But plenty approved of the family's decision to keep the stove, with one writing: "You have a working stove. That's all that matters."
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And as another put it: "Thank you for not throwing a huge appliance away for the sake of aesthetics."
Laura told Newsweek that the GE stove is around 10 years old. "When we bought the house, it had a bright yellow 1960s stove with a broken door. We found this one on Facebook marketplace for $50 to replace it," she said.
Laura and husband Sam, 39, have seven children—six girls and one boy—aged between 11 years old and 10 months. Their Teal House Farm account shows plenty of tips for sustainable living, including canning and food preservation.
"We moved out to the farmhouse to live a simpler, more frugal life, and we started the channel as a way to stay connected with family and friends that lived far away and share our adventures," Laura said.
"I continue to today mostly as a creative outlet. I am a stay-at-home mom with a lot of children so it's nice to have something that still allows me time to be creative and make a few extra dollars on the side. Plus, I used to be a teacher and a lot of the content is teaching canning and food preservation, so it's a way to still use my skills even though I'm not in the classroom these days."
As for the stove that has led Teal House to go so viral, Laura said: "One day, when it stops working, if I can find a decent price on a drop-in stove, I'll swap it out.
"But until then, it works, and that's what matters."
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