David, I was referring to your linked thread and what you said about it. Here, in this thread, brand names have been included by many in the discussion of function to provide concrete examples. This is useful for people who actually want to buy an oven, not just talk theory. Recently, I spent a lot of time shopping carefully looking for a simple oven with simple controls for an elderly woman who doesn't want to adapt her cooking to a new appliance, but wants the oven to act like any oven she's had before. She can't see well enough to use a touch display. I have been utterly dismayed by the lack of decent plain old ovens out there, which turn on, get hot, hold heat. Right now, we're trying to see if we can get her old oven restored. If that fails, I'm going to check out your very useful brand name suggestion from the other thread about the Ikea oven. It's one that had escaped my notice before--oh...because it doesn't come in the right size. Ikea might be an example of a cheap one that functions as well as a fancy one, from the reviews I've just read. Much better reviews than some of the mid-range units. It's very unfortunate that the ne plus ultra of energy savings seems to have trumped cooking/baking function in the current goals of oven design. No wonder rich people are putting wood fired ovens in their homes.

I chose Plato Woodwork over P&F. As a designer, I look for quality in the product as well as people and manufacturers who can provide the proper service and deliver on time and on budget for my clients. And Plato has done that for me in the past 3 years. During my initial debate between the two lines, I considered the quality of the finishes and their abilities to make custom parts and pieces and I'd say they are both great products. In terms of quality, I was particularly drawn to the fact that Plato's finishes are much more unique and stands itself apart from the masses. Their cabinet boxes are sturdy and well engineered, and as an added bonus, they are a green product with a formaldehyde-free finish and glue. (see http://www.platowoodwork.com/ and their green website http://platowoodwork-california.com) While I cannot speak about P&F's customer service, I can definitely share some experiences about Plato. Their customer services and engineers actually review your kitchen before making the cabinets, as opposed to just another cabinet order being pushed through an assembly line. So they actually know which cabinet goes where and look at your order as a functional space, versus just a cabinet list. If/when there are problems, their customer service jumps all over it to make sure a reasonable solution is provided to ensure proper customer satisfaction, which both my clients and I value highly. Having been in the business for years now, I have had enough of different finger pointing and am glad that I haven't had much of that to deal with at all from Plato and their service reps. And at the end of the day, I think we are paying the same, if not less than what most other cabinet makers at this level of craftsmanship, so then at the end of my debate, it was really more of a question, 'why NOT Plato?' I hope this helps and good luck with your project! Eric eric@mtkc.net www.mtkc.net Here is a link that might be useful: MT Kitchen Cabinets, Inc

We recently expanded and renovated the kitchen with P&F cabinetry. It's stunning. Really beautiful. For a small fee you can develop a custom color--paint/glaze, and they retain it in their systems to match pieces to in the future. Our KD was exceptional. The details she put into the integrated raised end panels, the paneled bar with pilasters and corbels, etc is just stunning. We also have a custom wood hood. In terms of finish--ours seems hard as nails, smooth as silk. The doors are solid. In terms of service---we had a situation where the end panels on the cabs that flank the wood hood were not proportioned correctly. P&F immediately manufactured and sent replacements, and the color exactly matched the other cabs. Since we have a custom color & glaze, I was impressed. The best way to determine price/value is to price your layout with a few different lines of cabs you are considering. I have a few areas in my kitchen that required custom sizes to get exactly what I wanted, so going with other lines I often had to compromise on the design. In the end we paid more for the P&F than some other lines we priced, but we also got a far superior quality and design for the incremental cost.

Hi Nicole, We ended up going with Plain and Fancy in painted white with the frameless MDF style, because we really liked the way their doors looked. With the amount of money we were spending, we felt it was worth it to get something we loved rather than something that's merely okay. One of the doors arrived damaged, but was quickly replaced. We love the cabinets. I think the paint has held up well, given that we have three kids (a teenager and two toddlers, and I'm not sure which are tougher on the cabinets). There's some visible vertical lines as the paint has split at the joints on some drawer and door panels, which is expected with time on painted cabinets - and is worse next to the dishwasher / microwave, due to the heat and humidity. And the paint is scuffed off on some of the corners of frequently used drawers. There are some dings and dents on the sides of some frequently used doors and drawers, probably due to us hitting them with various objects. But I'm sure that I'm nitpicking, since I'm looking at the cabinets closely every day. I think if someone came in and took a look at the kitchen, without carefully examining every drawer panel, they'd say it looks great. I will say that the installer is as important as the cabinets. We went with a cheaper installer, because they were $1k+ cheaper, and kind of wish we hadn't. They ended up nicking and scratching the insides of some of the glass door hanging cabinets while installing, and while you can touch it up it's never going to look as good as it originally did.