Here in this old pic is my hood over the old JennAire range which I finally was able to replace. The motor and vent to the outside are hidden in the cabinet above the hood. The system provides a 1200 cfm exhaust, which is wonderful. Here the cabinet doors are open to show the amount of storage I retained in the 15" deep cabinets. I am sure you can find something like this that will work. Mine is a ModernAire custom built to take the minimal vertical space for motor and venting. One problem with fitting a hood into your existing kitchen is that the space above the range is the same width as the range. Recommendations are always that the hood extend least 3" wider on each side than the range. However, a number of people with situations like yours (where they are retrofitting a hood into existing upper cabinets) have installed hoods of the same width as their ranges. This post was edited by Bellsmom on Mon, Dec 29, 14 at 19:46

If you do a search you'll find people on here who say the BS door is so hot if you touch it you'll burn yourself, and others who say the opposite. Barry makes a good point about the other things in a kitchen that can cause a burn. I've posted this before, but I'll do it again. I've had a BS RCS for over 2 months now. The sides of the door where the vents are get very hot. Touching those for a few seconds could potentially cause a burn, if you held your hand or other body part against it for at least a few seconds, and probably it would take longer than that. Not a likely scenario. A brief touch will not burn someone. And not much of the sides are exposed though, so unlikely to be an issue. But the door itself, nope. My door doesn't get that hot. Mine gets warm. The glass part gets warmer than the door but I've held my hand against it for several seconds before it's uncomfortable. I had a Viking range before this one and the door, the oven sides and the struts that attached the oven handle to the door got really really hot, painfully so if you touched them more than briefly. I raised two kids with that range, and no burns whatsoever. Kids learn quickly not to touch things. I wouldn't worry about the BS door at all. Get the range you like.

I am happy so far. I had an issue with the display on the control panel resetting almost every time I touched it. The oven still worked but it was annoying. BlueStar finally got new control panels in and my dealer installed mine a week or so ago. It is finally working perfectly. I love the looks and BS was responsive to my issue. I have made bread on the stone, but not pizza yet (that's coming soon). The manual says to wash the racks for the first time in the dishwasher. Do NOT wash the ball-bearing rack in the dishwasher. It will no longer glide. BS sent me a new rack. Even spraying the first one with silicone food-grade spray did not help it glide, so just don't use the dishwasher. The fan in the control panel runs the entire time the oven is on, which I wasn't ready for, but it's not so loud you have to yell to have a conversation, so it doesn't bother me much. The broiler is huge. I love that it fits a full sheet (have used that feature). I'm happy with both my range and my wall oven.

This photo was before we moved in so please forgive the sterile look of the kitchen. It's just the 2 of us now and since we recently downsized we purchased new appliances. We opted for the 30" Platinum, a 1200 CFM Prizer hood, a 30" Thermador Pro wall oven and microwave. I agree about the 'quick minute' - it's silly to have to also hit start. We love the BlueStar and the 25,000 BTU burner is the one I use the most. We did have to adjust the simmer burner to get it low enough but that was fairly easy. We haven't used the griddle or grill - maybe if we were cooking for more guests we would. DH loves the 25,000 for his wok and for heating up our small Lodge cast iron grill to sear steaks. I've baked in both the Thermador and BlueStar and even though one is electric and the other gas - they both maintain temperature settings. I also appreciate the open burners for ease of clean up.