I tried them all.......I had to work really hard and still got streaks until I listened to the folks here who said Bar Keep Friend. I didn't have any on hand so I used Bon Ami (guaranteed not to scratch). I used 2 cups hot water and about 2 tablespoons Bon Ami and kind of dissolved the Bon Ami in the water. I wiped it on with a soft towel, scrubbing where needed with additional Bon Ami and wiped it with a rinsed out rag. Dried it with a dry towel and in seconds, literally, no streaks, shiny, clean.........amazing ! I can't believe I wasted all that money on stainless steel cleaning products. I was ready to sell my stainless appliances because they looked so crummy all the time. No wax, no oil, no nothing but clean......yeah! Oh and the bottom freezer section is exactly how filthy the whole thing was.

Most of my appliances are GE, and I clean them with white vinegar and polish with olive oil, and they look great. But I have a Samsung refrigerator and it seemed like nothing would work, then I read an old post about Magic Erasers. The eraser worked great, and I just dried with paper towels and they look better than new. I tried the Magic Eraser on a small area on my GE dishwasher but it did not work well and made it looked worse. I cleaned it again with vinegar and oil and looks better again.

Thank you, all, once again! Diy crazed, we are living with two Ikea "Udden" units flanking the range right now. They are topped with stainless counters and one has a small integral sink. They've been surprisingly functional and it was the convenience of being able to set hot heavy pans right on them and not having to worry about stains that first made us consider the stainless. The look, especially in winter, leaves me a little cold. One of my favorite kitchens in my files has ivory cabinets and zinc counters. We were so keen for zinc in the early days (zinc counters paired with a patterned encaustic tile floor a la french bistro--at least as reimagined by Thomas Keller--if you can believe it). In the end we decided to try be truer to the Victorian provenance of our house, but with quite a bit of allowance for contemporary conveniences and eclecticism. I'm having a difficult time visualizing the soapstone though. Thank you for your read of our kitchen. We may be too close to evalutate. Malhgold, those are my concerns exactly. The marble reference in the drawing is from an earlier iteration. We've made the decision for perimeter counters to be all one material. But I do know what you mean about the soapstone changing the tone. Next to black, lighter colours often read as white and texture fades. The other surfaces are not white because we were going for a kind of neutrals plus texture look. One of the considered options we will still have is to put a different patina on the bricks, or even paint them in the future. I installed them myself, to match the existing brick and concrete pillar. We're also having our cabinets hand painted on site, so one thing we've been contemplating is painting the island much darker. The entrance to the kitchen is through a small library (not yet installed) with dark stained, possibly black bookshelves and a white oak herringbone floor that our neighbour, a master woodworker, is going to be installing for us in the spring. Anyway, all this is to say that we've tried to build allowances for change into our plans and although the overall light look was our favourite for some time, we're starting to feel the need for some anchoring. Kitchendetective, unoiled soapstone is definitely something I'll consider. It looks almost like zinc unoiled and I think that softer colour will pick up some of the more subtle veining in the marble. I'm just concerned that it will darken regardless.--but the evolution of its surface is also appealing. Finally after my long winded response, Vtkitchengirl. My pendants are called "Franklin pendant". Their finish is antique silver (and they do tarnish!). I bought mine at Ginger's in Toronto, but if you google the name, I think you'll find other distributors in the US.

You GO, @Kathy Linn! I resolved early-on in our kitchen design to adopt a "no-stainless" policy (more for the looks than the upkeep), and so set out to find an antique, enameled stove (for cleanability in addition to looks) and even went with copper sinks to avoid SS. My first kitchen was all-white when we bought the house, and not really in a good way - laminate countertops and mdf cabinets in addition to white appliances. It was more work keeping the countertops white than the fridge (although the door handle did yellow with time) but I was done with white by the time we moved. For our build I settled on a 1929 Glenwood, restored at a shop outside Boston. It was a splurge but like yours (which is also very handsome) one we'll never need to replace. I'd like to think if consumers start throwing the SS junk back in appliance companies' (and designers') faces and going with restored antiques or otherwise reliable, easy-to-clean appliances with actual color options that we don't have to replace after 5-10 years, maybe they'll stop telling us what we should want and start producing quality again.