We purchased a Parade Home with all the upgrades in June 2014. By November 2014 we started seeing our stain fading off the front panel of our dishwasher wood front panel. Then our dishwasher front computer panel froze up. I had to google how to reset the computer board. 2 months later the computer panel froze up again. I called the expert to come look at it. He said that #1 the dishwasher was put in at a tilt and the steam was making the stain come up and get into the computer board. He thinks that the weight of the wood panel tilted the dishwasher and caused the problem. The stain has faded on the top of the panel already. I have to pay $275 for a new computer panel on a KitchenAid dishwasher that is only 1 1/2 years old. I don't know if I should take the issue up with the builder? Of course we only have a 1 year contract...But I feel this resulted because he was uneducated about KitchenAid and wood front panels. Like xedos mentioned in the last comment, wood panels are made for Miele, Bosch, or Asko where the steam does not effect the front panel. This is so frustrating to me. (If you don't have experience building "high end" homes than DON'T BUILD THEM!!!)

I've had the newer 24" Insight Pro model for 16 months. My cabs haven't sustained any damage, and I do not ever see steam released anywhere. We do not, however, eat MW meals. I reheat leftovers, defrost an occasional english muffin, and melt butter in mine. I've never heard any issue about steam from a MWD damaging cabs, and I've been here quite a while. Many, many of us here own them. Oops! Need to put my Meyer lemon curd away.

Yes, any warming drawer can be used as a slow cooker. You just need to know what temperature you want to cook at and for how long for it to be safe, and a $10 oven thermometer. I have a five year old Monogram, which was chosen because of its temperature range, ability to take a cabinet panel and price. I also liked that it's a simple one with no jobs for engineers program overlay of electronics. It has an on/off switch, and a Lo/Med/Hi dial. I think the temperature range is something like 85-210. I don't need it to do reheating (which is what the ones that go to 250 do), and do need it to do plate warming (well under 100 degrees). I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but if you look at explanations of how the old crockpots worked, they tell you the temperatures. Use those with the old style recipes that expected a minimum of eight hours for a cook. (I have a real issue with the new kind of crockpots which don't actually cook slowly--though you can do that in the warming drawer too, at their higher temperatures.) So, since you don't use a blech, you need more warming oven space, but since you do open/close the oven while warming, and do reheat from a primary source (i.e., in a warming oven rather than on top of the water urn), it's not so dire. The Gaggenau Shabbat/Yom Tov setting you described is what I was talking about. I think it's *brilliant*. Over engineered in a *useful* way. If I held the heating vs. cooking issue, I'd want one just for that. There are a couple of good locations for a warming drawer. Top drawer, or first under a shallow utensil drawer, either under or next to the cooktop is a GW favorite. This is especially useful if you make pancakes for the whole family to eat together, you can flip right onto the stack in the drawer. If you have a varied, multipart dinner with people eating in shifts (little kids first, sports kids later, grown-ups when all have come home), the height is perfect for dishing up right out of the drawer, rather than having to take each vessel out one at a time. There are a few useful locations. Besides near the cooktop, there's near the table. The one is better for accumulating parts of the meal, the other is better for serving and refilling plates. The least liked place is the bottom of the oven stack. Bottom is inconvenient because of the bending. The oven stack is bad because it's usually in the least used part/most out of the way of the kitchen. It's telling that Thermador used to make a combo appliance with the microwave on top, then the warming drawer and the oven on the bottom. It was compact enough that the oven was still reasonably high off the floor. But they thought the warmer shouldn't be on the bottom either! It only is on ranges because it's an extra. If you don't need a pan drawer there on the bottom, might as well make it a warmer. My own warming drawer is just below counter level, in a stack with the speed oven. It's about 7' from the cooktop area, but on a straight line to the dining room. It works great there. Still convenient to the stove, but significantly easier to get to from the table. My theory is that another reason warming drawers are often put under ovens is that there's only room for a drawer under a double oven anyway, and builders don't realize that if your pot is in an oven and you want to keep it warm, you just leave it in the warm oven. :) There is nothing that you can make in a steam oven that inherently comes out better than by some other method of cooking. It's just a lot easier. You can add steam to a regular oven with a ramekin of water, a pan of water, etc. Plus, as I said, the seals on new electric ovens are so good nowadays that they don't go dry the way the older ones did. I haven't ever steamed vegetables in a conventional oven, but I imagine if you put a pan full of water in, brought it to 215 degrees, then put a perf pan or rack of vegetables over it for six minutes, they'd be perfectly blanched, too. The *plumbed* steam oven allows you to set the oven to pre-heat and work up steam, then just pop your pan of veg in and out. Dead easy. My can't be bothered chicken is also dead easy. For boneless/skinless breasts or tenders, I brush them with "suntan lotion", i.e., some kind of sauce or dressing, sprinkle on dried herbs and seasoning, and pop them in and out. For a whole chicken, I remove the excess fat, if any, and the spine (or get the butcher to do it--I save them in the freezer for stock), and make a "rack" out of a large sliced onion with a package of cleaned baby carrots (for the lazy version--brushing whole ones works fine, but they go limp on me in the produce drawer and I hate giving them shelf space when I can just buy a package ready to go), plus whatever veg I feel like adding. Lay the chicken over the top and do the suntan and sprinkle routine and cook for an hour and a half on 360/60% steam. Crisp skin, tender perfect chicken. If one didn't go too wild with the veg (height), it would be possible to do two at a time. The liquid that comes from the chicken and veg does accumulate in the pan, as well as a good bit of condensation if everything starts cold, so the carrots come out as if in stew--which is a big hit here. :) I've even done fat slices of zucchini, and while they're way overcooked, they're delicious. Hard eggs come out great, according to the direction, but I have an egg steamer, which I think is easier to use. I grew up with one too. It's the only single use appliance I use regularly. Duh. I just thought of something. You probably should have a double oven just so you don't need to kasher the big one every time you want to bake. You could definitely make all your roasts in the combi-, unless you were having super crowds. The combi- has all sorts of crannies and crevices. It can probably be kashered, but it would be with great rigamarole. It doesn't have pyrolitic cleaning. It's all stainless steel, and has a mesh cover over the fan, etc. I'm pretty sure it couldn't be kashered for Pesach at all, if you hold very strictly. Re fridge, since you have experience with it the way it is, and you and your sister like it where it is, who are we to argue?

Polyshades is just a colored translucent coating. If you put it over different color surfaces, the final product will still show different colors. If I had this project, I would try either General Finishes Java gel stain or a very dilute shellac with a dark dye added. If either version worked, it would need to be topcoated for protection. I have rescued some ugly looking cabinets, doors and floors that most people would say were beyond help. Those type of projects just aren't feasible if you have to hire people to do the work. It only makes financial sense if the labor is very cheap and someone talented enough to do that work can probably be better used elsewhere. I will tackle those projects if I want the challenge and the experience because I could be doing other tasks which might bring more value for the time spent. The last time I had tenants nearly destroy a rental kitchen, we just ripped out the old cabinets and put in an outdated but very solid and durable set from ReStore. For $400, I got enough cabinets for the kitchen and the laundry room and granite countertops as well.