From looking on line (link below - see page 4) it appears that there is the usual requirement for non-combustible material on the wall above the range and below the hood. Countertops can be installed on both sides of the GE Monogram range, but any side wall adjoining the countertops must be at least 12" away from the range burners. I assume this is because of the intense heat that can be generated by the burners. I'm not sure exactly what you are calling a "fireplace" that you are installing this range in. Is it totally brick from floor to hood, or only from the cooktop surface up? I recommend you check with your architect, contractor, and your GE dealer (and check local codes), but my guess is that you will be fine if you plan on installing the range within a brick "fireplace"(?) that provides a suitably insulated noncombustible surface on both sides. The drawing accompanying the GE Monogram installation manual shows what appears to be a sheet-rocked wall (not brick) 12" away from the cooktop, but better safe than sorry. BTW - Re: the "fireplace" that you are installing the range within. One other thing you might want to consider is the width of the range hood above. Although we're installing a 48" GE Monogram hood above our 48" range (doing this because we got a terrific deal on the exhaust hood, and I think it will be adequate), there are many folks on the forum that recommend that your hood be at least 6 inches wider than your cooktop. Do a search on this forum and you'll find plenty of threads on the topic. You might want to figure out your hood before you lock yourself into a particular width of brick "fireplace." Here is a link that might be useful: Installation Manual for GE Mongram 36

Small kitchens may benefit more from a single integrated cooking unit, ie, burners and oven combined. Two different cooking functions in the same footprint! And it allows for the basic "kitchen triangle" (sink, refrigerator and cooking) to be most efficiently arranged. If you have enough room, having a seperate wall mounted oven(s) is often a great convenience and visually appealing. Often, wall ovens, refrigerators and pantries can be adjacent to one another in a cabinent arrangement that accomodates the various depths and makes everything look neatly built-in. In the end it all depends on your available space and personal choice. As to the stainless backsplash and shelving, I'd certainly consider them if you and/or your family do a lot of high temperature cooking, create a lot of steam and airborne grease and/or use a lot of the burners at the same time. Tile and grout lines don't do very well in such circumstances without a lot of continuous cleaning. Lastly, you might want to consider a roof-top ventilator and an 8" round duct from the hood to the roof in order to reduce noise in the kitchen, but enhance vertilation and cooling. For best results, your hood might be 2" wider on each side of your burners and at least 21" deep. Good luck.

Nonnafly, "Pretty" is a very subjective opinion, but it is something we hear quite often about Lacanche. You're right, ordering a propane range from the factory is best, as it ensures that everything is done properly. We have a demo unit that is set up on propane and used by local chefs on occasion, they are always very happy. I know there are also many people on GW who have propane ranges, from the "basic" brands to the more expensive, a quick search should give you a lot of opinions. Most brands offer propane options now, I'm sure you'll find a style you like. And lastly for a farmhouse design, I would go with a range rather than a stovetop + wall oven. Good luck!

lepetite matin, if you bake or use the oven in any way that you need to open the door(changing pans around or for something with short cooking times like appetizers or cookies), I would not buy it. There are a couple of long posts about this a few years ago and one of their engineers came on one of the posts to answer questions. He admitted the ovens are not for everyone. One of the dealers supplied a letter from Capital answering complaints about oven performance. I looked on their current manual for the DF ranges and the way it works has not changed. I will post a couple of excerpts from the manual they have online now. The oven works in a a odd way. I had a Dacor wall oven and range that worked the same way and Dacor bought them back. The preheat comes on and heats the oven cavity. This is an intense heat and you cannot put food in during this time. After the preheat completes, it switches to sort of a maintenance mode with the element rapidly cycling on and off to maintain the temperature. When in this mode, it can’t raise the temperature in a timely manner. If you open the oven and lose temperature, it keeps cycling in the maintenance mode and takes a long time to come up. If you open it frequently as in baking cookies, the temperature drifts down but it has to drop 150°F for the preheat to come back on. Every other oven I have had, if the temperature drops 50°F the element comes on and brings the temperature back up quickly in 60 sec. or so. The result is the temperature is all over the place. It might work ok if fully preheated and you don’t open the door for casseroles. It’s the same thing if you turn the temperature up. It will take a long time to go up because it just sits in the maintenance mode with very little capacity to increase the temperature. To illustrate the length of time it takes to move in temperature in that maintenance mode, this section talks about how long it takes to preheat the oven without the preheat. This is time in addition to a normal preheat time. 20 min would be for lower temperatures and 40 min for higher temps. If you needed to preheat to 350°F, it would take about 40-45 min to move 280°F from 70°F to 350°F. If you put something in frozen, it can take longer. If you open the door to check cookies, the temp drops 50°F or if you turn the oven up 50°F it takes 10-15 min to recover. If you open again in 5 min, it hasn’t recovered and it drops again, you can see where it drifts down. There was one poster here who said that she liked that it worked that way. That type of heating did not work for me. There are also a couple of posters who like their connoisseurians but seem to talk about the burners more than the oven. One even had other ovens they used. This was from earlier this year. “Kate May 15, 2019 reading all of these comment a few years later - I've owned a culinarian 36" cookktop and loved it. in new house, new state and getting ready to redo kitchen. really have my sights set on a 48" connoisseurian open burner dual fuel and i started to hyperventilate reading all the reviews on the net about horrible oven performance.”