We too have the Therm columns, 30'' fridge and 18'' freezer dating back almost 4 years now. In general we like them a lot. They provide rock solid cooling. Love the dual compressors and the bottom location so there's no obtrusive grillwork above the doors a la SZ. The configuration is great, much more useful than a traditional full depth fridge. They have not been perfect though. Early on, the glitzy movable upper shelf in the fridge stopped working--I think we stripped out the gears. I never dealt with it, as it was a feature of absolutely no use to us. We had to replace the entire ice maker unit (under warranty). We had to replace one of the glass shelves that sits above the produce bin when the plastic mount broke off (under warranty). Overall I'd buy them again, especially considering what was available to us when we did our renovation--we were looking for fully integrated units, and the SZ units only came in one width for freezer and fridge, which gave us too much freezer storage and not enough fridge. The BI's (if my memory is correct) still had the exposed grills above the doors which did now work with our design. I am still a bit nervous about longevity, given the little issues that have arisen, but knock wood, so far no major issues.

No problem, no offense. I understand. The sample we got from Architectural Ceramics is only 3 rows, so harder to get a good idea of what it will really look like. My biggest question is about the glass. On the black backer board that the sample is mounted on, it is VERY iridescent, showing all of the rainbow colors you expect in iridized glass. But the photos don't show that, and I wonder if that's because they are mounted on white sheet rock with white mortar (not the black board). In real life, do you get the rainbow hues (like a soap bubble), or is it just more reflective like what you see in your photos. Also, did you replace any of the glass tiles with a darker amber (as I know others on the forum have)? If so, where did you get them? Thanks for your help.

Debbie, Danielle and Venice, thank you for your kind comments. I'm thrilled that my kitchen is an inspiration to someone, and was remiss in not mentioning my two main inspiration kitchens: those of cat_mom (wouldn't have tried for a more contemporary feel had I not fallen in love with the clean lines of her kitchen) and Jodi_in_socal, the original GW trendsetter for the Fire and Ice backsplash. But truly, there are so many beautiful kitchens on this forum and so many helpful people that I had a wealth of inspiration and information, for which I am extremely thankful.

Posted by trevorlawson (My Page) on Fri, Dec 5, 14 at 19:01 Its true manufactures are not allowed to force a retailer to sell at a set price. But what they can do if a retailer is caught underselling is stop selling to them.... Most appliance manufactures do increase the prices once per year, beginning of the year is the choice of most. Normally the average price increase is 3%-8%. re: there are a few things that can happen when a dealer is selling under UMRP for a period of time. If the product has a volume rebate ( a kickback the dealer gets at the end of the year for being loyal to one brand ) they can with hold the rebate which costs the dealer money at the end of the year if they see occurrences of selling under UMRP. The second penalty is that some high end appliance distributors will stop selling to the dealer who continually sells under UMRP. . The third penalty is that they can declare them an unauthorized dealer and the remainder of there stock will not be covered under the manufacturers warranty when sold. Every manufacturer in the industry handles this differently and there tolerances vary. When the product has a running change ( meaning the features change without changing the model number then the dealer has a right to sell it off at a discounted price. They may or may not disclose to the customer that they are selling last years design. Some differences can be a subtle as lighting changes from halogen to LED> Typically the manufacturers impose price increases as cost of material goes up ( such as stainless steel ) and these increases are handed down usually once a year.