It is the same fridge /freezer combo sold by Sears Kenmore. You can try buying the Electrolux or the Kenmore Elite and just get a good warranty. Sure, they are a bit noisier than the best and they often have a bit mor3e variable temperature. Don't get an exterior water and ice maker. Get a freezer that unloads ice into an open container so you can quickly slide your glass into it and get your ice. It is much faster than an exterior unit anyway and that is the part of freezers that breaks most often--exterior water and exterior ice.

While I went more upscale--I bought a Thermador Freedom 30" fridge and a Freedom 24" freezer, I didn't add the exterior ice and water dispenser. Not only does it look better without it, I can get ice for me or 8 people 10 times quicker than any refrigerator with an exterior ice dispenser. The Thermador freezer has a great automatic ice maker that dumps into a huge open tray.

A trick I used was using my contractors name and bought it under his corporate name, getting a sizable discount--about 20%--maybe a tad more.

If you want to buy a separate pro looking fridge and freezer it will cost. That is just a plain fact.

Putting together a kutchen is deciding on your busdget and spending more on what is most important to you and compromising on things that are less imprtant.

There are a lot of good stainless sinks made by Lansen, Tricor, and Siena (my fave being Lansen) that can save you a lot. There are plenty of cheaper dishwashers that perform about as well as the most expensive, except they are often considerably louder. CR will show you fairly inexpensive models that are $1,000 (or more) cheaper than the pro-looking brands--and you may still find some stainless brands in the cheaper area that perform quite well. You can save a lot on faucets if you aren't married to a Grohe or other high end faucets.

Get well made--not painted, cabinets from less expensive companies. Many are still well made. Kraftmaid, Wellborn, and some others make nicely stained cabs.

Greg

Are the bad reviews you read about the all fridge and all freezer units? The only ones I saw were quite awhile back, and were regarding the side-by-sides. I have read happy reviews from all-fr/all-frz owners here. (And if you want to see bad reviews, search for SubZero...Now that would make me feel sick to pay thousands and thousands and have the repeated problems some people do...Others love them, though. Seems no fridge brand is perfect.) Anyway, there is no way we could afford the higher end brands, and with a large family needed lots of fridge space, so we have 2 Electrolux all-fridges and 1 all-freezer. We've been in our house 2 1/2 months, so that's not a long testing period, but we're happy with them so far. They are certainly no louder than anything else we've had, but, as I said, we've never had any of the high end brands. The fridges keep the food properly cold, and the freezer keeps the food frozen. What more can we ask?

Our freezer came dented...I suspect it was due to mishandling in storage or in transit somewhere, but Electrolux authorized its full replacement very quickly.

thanks for the input. the reviews I saw where on side by side but I guess I'm assuming that everything they make probably isn't good. I was going to do whole kitchen with Electrolux Icon but now I'm not sure.

Greg, you mentioned stained cabinets not painted. why? that's what I've been looking at. I looked into Kraftmaid first but heard from other people that they are crap, is that just line from Lowe's?

I'm sooooooo confused. I thought I had made some progress on this kitchen, now I'm back to square one but I want to make the right choices.

The Bosch/Gaggenau/Thermador columns are too new to have a track record. But so far, so good and hence the reason they are on our shopping list :). They are expensive though....

I can tell you "we" looked, touched and measured the Thermador columns, Miele(pre-production) and the Sub model 632 and then the new BI-48S on video. "We" picked out the Sub Ok mw DW picked out the Sub and I can tell you she is not brand name person at all. Buys clothes where she gets the best for the least. She just liked the feel and storage capability of the Sub. The Therm and Mieles look bright smaller inside and with the new Sub's I think they tried to address the brightness. I hope to see a Sub in real life in the next couple of weeks or by the end of May at a showroom in Michigan (per the showroom people)