beekeeperswife- Our Garland range (the precursor to Bluestar) is 36" wide, with a 36" wide shelf and ss backsplash (not tiled in, it's a sheet of ss). The hood is 42" and where the range hood meets the backsplash there is about 1.5" gap on either side. It does not bother us, but we're not that detail oriented, YMMV. The warming shelf is a great place to store the kitchen timer, mortar & pestle, salt shakers and pepper mill, and a great plate warmer. The rangehood is vintage Broan, so no heat lamps, but if you are cooking either in the oven or on the rangetop, the plates will warm up nicely there. WRT the underside getting gummed up, we're not clean freaks, and the cleanliness of the underside of anything never weighs on my mind, so I've never even looked. There is a lip, so the underside is about 2" up underneath (if that makes sense). When I clean the shelf itself I swipe the finished edge of the lip and call it good. Good luck- sandyponder

I looked at the picture you linked, but notice that in the picture, they have stuff on the counters to block your view of how the wider SS panel looks at counter height. I'm sure they did that intentially, because that's where I think using a 42" wide panel will look bad. I also have a 36" rangetop and 42" hood, so I know exactly what you're talking about. How much clearance do you have between the hood and the adjacent upper cabinets? Will the rest of the backsplash be tiled? My suggestion is to use the 20" riser with shelf, and use the same backsplash tile to fill the gap between the top of the shelf and the bottom of the hood. That will be the best way to avoid a width mis-match, and as a bonus, the 10" or so of tile above the riser will be a nice visual accent.

Wow, thanks for the responses. Today was the decision day for us. First stop, we went to the local fabricator. He is going to make me my duct cover for the hood. (42wx12dx24h) for about $80! Then we decided to do a 36x36 piece of stainless steel for behind the range. (around $40-$50), man I love the Amish. Next stop the appliance store. Ordered the 36" rangetop with the 24" high backguard with shelf! I figured if the rangetop ever was pulled out, what would be behind it? Do I want to spend $$$ on tiling behind it? Not really. So this way there is a piece of ss behind backguard The stainless sheet will go from the hood to below the top of the rangetop. Kellienoelle: I did look carefully at the showroom, and they tiled right up to the stainless and then just end it with a line of grout. It looks perfect. bacin0--what rangetop are you looking at? shappy-this is good, no, great to hear! will, I remember that shelf. My cabinets are quite a distance out from the range, I don't think it would look right. But I do recall it looked really nice in that kitchen. polie, my range is 36" wide the hood is 42" wide. The backguard is 24" high. Sorry for the confusion! westiegirl, ah yes, the streaks....I'll try antiquesilver's tip too! motherof3, can't wait to see that! thanks fromthesouth--yep, that's the look---ss from range to hood! Can't wait! Thanks again everybody!

I wanted to contribute my experience- we got the capital culinarian all gas 48" w/ the griddle (so we have 6 burners) within the past year and I have been using it for a few months. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our decision!! I too did a lot of research and did not read many negative reviews about it- and they are very well built, pretty, and simple design-wise (my husband is a contractor and thought they were most similar to the commercial ranges he has worked on, i.e. if something breaks it would be easy to fix). I probably wouldn't need 6 burners just for cooking- but it is nice to have. I also do a lot of canning/preserving, and do use 6 burners at the same time (simmer for warming lids, canning pot, pot for extra hot water, pot w/ stuff to be canned, pot w/ syrup for the stuff to be canned, one pot w/ dinner cooking). My husband loves the griddle- very easy to make breakfasts, hot sandwiches, etc. You could always do 4 burners and a grill/griddle as an option if you don't can/need 6 burners. Also, I really enjoy the big oven on the 48" (not sure how this compares in size to the 36" since the 48" has a large and small oven and the 36" one large oven). It can fit 9x13" pans side by side, and cookie sheets. The roll out racks aren't as smooth as some of the other brands we looked at (we liked the thermador racks the best- very smooth) but they work pretty well. Also, I haven't had any problems w/ the baking heat/evenness, and our oven is gas (which I think is typically worse than electric ovens?). I haven't baked bread yet- but have done a lot of other foods (cookies, casseroles, etc.). So if it were me I would definitely do the 36" over the 30" :-) It sounds like you would use it w/ all the cooking that you do. If you have any questions about mine please let me know :-)