To clarify, nowhere on my invoice does it state it is a GE/Assurant warranty. But who knows, maybe ABT and GE both know that ABT only uses GE...but I don't know that. I faxed my invoice to GE, and they said they will try to straighten out the paperwork with it. My invoice establishes that I paid ABT for a warranty, it doesn't say who the warranty is with. I didn't even know it was with GE until ABT told me it was. I was originally told by GE the paperwork should come from ABT, and ABT did not disagree with that even after two days and many phone calls and speaking with different people at both companies (the idea of me sending my invoice to GE came up after I was transferred to another department at GE and basically begged them to help me since ABT was being such a PITA). If ABT had sent the paperwork to GE right away, and maybe asked them to expedite the processing (I find it hard to believe there isn't a better way for this to be dealt with), I would be getting this repaired Tuesday. Even if GE is able to process this with my paperwork it will take up to 8 business days (with the day count starting Monday) before I can schedule service (per GE). And that is assuming nothing goes wrong, they can use my invoice, etc. This thread doesn't even begin to document what I went through this past week. Many, many phone calls. Call to ABT, call to GE, asking ABT to fax paperwork, checking with GE if it was received, calling ABT again, calling GE again, speaking to someone else at GE, etc, etc. I am going to make more calls Monday. Thank you everyone for your support here, and to the people who have emailed me privately.

Davidro1, the deposit for the counters is big, but at this point I don't care that much and I don't think we are being taken. Paying that much now allowed me to take advantage of a "we pay the sales tax" facebook coupon that was expiring. More importantly, there were only 3 local options for getting Richlite installed and of the others one never responded to my calls and emails, and the other quoted higher than this source (Eco Home Improvement in Berkeley, FYI). EHI was also pretty helpful and flexible during our planning stages, and gave us a really good deal on the flooring we wanted, so I am satisfied with them. I am just really glad it is moving forward...the last few decisions were the hardest of all to actually finalize. You don't even want to know how much time we spent debating whether to spend the extra for dovetailed drawers, for example...the upcharge was frankly unreasonable, but in the end we did it anyway because we knew that otherwise we would always wish we had done it. willtv, I will definitely post progress pics once we actually make any progress...for a couple of months, progress is going to mean "boxes pile up in my storage unit," so don't expect much anytime soon...the juicy stuff will begin in Mid-January.

I am old enough to remember (a little) life before we were all immersed in color magazines, color internet, color TV. My guess is, people did feel more free to find their own way with color, with less worry about "doing it wrong." As a rough parallel, years ago, the physical appearance of political candidates was not as important as their words. (Abraham Lincoln really wasnâÂÂt much of a looker!) Now, how a candidate looks is as important (or more so) than who they are, because appearance can no longer be separated from the complete package. We can't learn about the candidate's opinions without also learning how they look. It's possible people feel pressure to choose "the right colors" because we never see anything in the absence of color, anymore; itâÂÂs predetermined as part of the complete package, and presented as a whole. We can't see finished rooms without also seeing the colors the designers chose, so maybe people start thinking Color Choice is another area best left to the professionals. So maybe all candidates must now be Pretty, and all rooms must now be Tasteful. That's fine, but we'll miss some remarkable opportunities that way, on both fronts. Maybe the earlier prevalence of black and white TV, photography, and books is why Frigidaire could sell appliances in pink, blue, yellow, and poppy red, years ago, but they canâÂÂt do so now? Possibly we gave ourselves more permission back then, to just buy what we happened to like, instead of worrying about resale or whether it might go out of style. I think it's also harder to commit to bold colors or strong styles because of the pace and volume of visual info on the internet. It's impossible to read all the blogs, all the websites, all the magazines, all the time, but it's easy to fall into thinking that you should, to do a Really Good Job. The pace of the available information might cause people to feel like they must always be ready to leap to the next mini-trend. (Which will be here in about fifteen minutes, and youâÂÂd better not miss it, or you might embarrass yourself by picking something that is no longer "current"!) Good grief. Maybe a lack of self confidence, for some of us, is part of the current lack of commitment to strong colors. If we all trusted ourselves a bit more, we could probably surf the ocean of incredibly rich resources we have today, pick what we like, and not be worried by the rest. (I love conversations like this.)

Thanks for the detailed write-up. My wife and I have a 10 y.o. Thermador range, and recently looked at their 36" rangetop for our kitchen renovation. The star-shaped burners were a big selling point to me. Ultimately, we ruled it out because the salesman said it doesn't have an option for an integrated grill. I just looked at the Thermador website though, and it sounds like they'll be offering a grill soon. Other than that, I don't like the Extra-Low burners for simmering (although we can can a great simmer from the normal burners on our range). The biggest problem we're having is deciding whether to replace our 25 y.o refrigerator. Every model I've looked at seems to have complaints about noise. As you said, it seems to be the luck of the draw. It also seems to me that, in order to comply with energy efficiency standards, manufacturers end up making noisier products as well.