Welcome to the forum. The first advice anyone here will give you is to forget about matching. Keep your fridge and dishwasher if you like them. Get the best in class appliances for each category. Function over form. And anyway I personally like the look of different appliances better than matched ones. Ovens: Electrolux and Bosch get the most consistent positive reviews here and they both offer microwave stacks. I haven't seen many reviews of KA or JA. I have no experience with it but was impressed by the JA wall oven when I looked at it in the store and I definitely think it is worth consideration. I would axe KA because it does not allow you to turn off the convection fan. I have an older model KA which does let me control the convection fan and I love it but I wouldn't consider the new ones. JA does, even though they are both made by Whirlpool. Odd. Cooktop: Bluestar would be the best for performance because of the high BTU open burners. Thermador would be second best because of the star burners. As for the others I consider them all to be pretty much the same. There isn't much to go wrong with these so your primary concerns should be burner design and burner layout. Hood: Whatever you like the looks of and can afford. Try to maximize capture area by going one size up from your cooktop and considering depth. This post was edited by hvtech42 on Thu, Aug 14, 14 at 20:43

Facebook isn't just about "friending" people you know face-to-face. It's about networking with people who have the same interests you have. If it wasn't for Facebook, I wouldn't talk to my cousins, who ALL live in The Netherlands. None of us like letter writing. Their emails get lost in all the spam I get. I have a lot of co-workers on FB and we have silly conversations on FB that we can't have at work. We don't all work the same shifts, so it's nice to talk on FB when it's convenient for us. I have friends who live in the US. We are a group of women (I mentioned our private group here a few days ago), and a few of us have met face-to-face. We used to use YahooGroups, but Facebook is so much easier to use. I belong to several colouring groups, photography groups, Calgary groups, etc., to get information directly from others. I learn more through FB about my hobbies than I do through Google, although quite often when I ask a question, I'll get sent to google... lol Facebook is addictive. It's fun. It's my way to keep up with my family because we are all so busy with our families, jobs and life in general. Do I really care what someone ate for breakfast? Nope. And they're probably not interested in what I ate either. But we post pictures and sometimes someone will say, "hey! You have a recipe for that? It looks delicious!". There is so much more than posting the food you eat or how the weather is.

No snidely, McD's franchise owners are not small businesses. I know all about how one becomes one as I was in a relationship with a multimillionaire for many years and he considered owning. No one is saying any individual should shoulder the burden. No one is saying take away employee's salary. Where was that even intimated? Not by me. I think, as a society, as a whole, we don't value the right things. The almighty dollar is not what should be first and foremost. I suggested, the business could make more money by being nicer and doing things to make people feel welcome. If I went to someplace that treated me like a number and a nuisance, I'd not only avoid that place, I'd tell others to avoid. Not very good business sense. People ask me all the time, in the course of my job (one of about ten billion things I do), where to go to take people out to show off the city. You can bet I have been sending business to those who take care of customers. If dinky donuts doesn't want to play, I'd send them to Donut Country, run by a middle TN family for generations. They're better anyhow. This upcoming weekend, a top dog from across the pond is coming to meet with top dog in my industry. They're going to the place I took my out of town guests. My boss takes his guests. Why? Because no request made to them is wrong. I'm sure my piddly donation of a two figure meal didn't do much for them the other day, but come Sunday night, it'll be four figures. And it won't be the last time I send them my business. Oh, and parking is impossible, lines are long, conversations are going on. Doesn't detract to me. Sure, it could've been quieter. I probably could've done without the guests at the next table, but instead, they ended up making me laugh, and made it memorable for me. Such is life. Some know how to make lemonade or a dollar just by being nice.

I like my cooktop a bit closer to my sink and on the same counter run so I don't have to carry wet, drippy things across my floor. So I'm not sure I'd like that. I go back-and-forth between sink and cooktop frequently so the longer trek would bug me. If you go with that plan, I can see the peninsula becoming the major prep area instead of the back counter. If you find that's true for you, you will want to move the DW to the other side of the sink. I do think that long, uninterrupted back counter would make a great baking center. But I also think moving the wall ovens next to fridge (or removing them and replacing cooktop with range) would give you better advantages and still give you a baking center. I like Palimpsest's idea better. Again, YMMV.