Texaskitchen, I'm sorry. Did I call anybody an ass? And as far as complaining which I wasn't, my post indicated good customer service on the part of electrolux. It's there in black and white. I use the gardenweb occassionally to share experiences and concerns which will equivate to either fairness on behalf of the customer by the corporation or as complete unwarranted hassel. And then there's everything in between that the reader will have to determine for themself. I DO NOT! REPEAT,DO NOT! rate the company nor do I tell people how to spend their hard earned money on a particulare brand unless I can offer concrete evidence both in customer service and product performance. I will warn or share my experiences if and only if I feel it could help a person make a selection . And like I indicated, I have no stakes in the equity's market and to prove my point further you have indicated " it's examples like this that make me want to buy from E-lux"... and guess what? I didn't have to suggest that. You've determined that yourself. Case & Point. I have a concern with a global market for reasons that I won't list here for obvious reasons so I indicated that the global market concerns me and that's it. That being said, I would rather buy an American product, built for Americans and by Americans. I don't see the connection with an American product costing big $$$ just because it's American. If that were the case the slave labor of "under industrialized nations and its people should translate into a GE, Samsung, etc. appliance like a refridgerator costing what... a couple of hundred dollars instead of a few thousand $$$? And just for your editification nearly 50% of the American workforce have less than 17,000.00 dollars in their retirment plans and it's even worse for the few remaining. So, feel free in me calling you an ass... where ever that came from? And since I feel it is beneath me to even come off as inflammatory on this web I don't have to. You did a pretty good job of that yourself.

There are several differences (some of which may be important, some of which may not): 1) A beverage center, within the appliance industry, is a glass door unit that has 2 wine racks in it for the storage of both wine bottles and cans/bottles. The dorm fridge is not that 2) The higher end (starting at roughly $1000) beverage centers generally can be built into cabinetry; the lower end ones will need to have ventilation on the sides and the back, which may affect the look you are going for in his office 3) Some brands of beverage centers (Liebherr, U-Line, Sub-Zero) act also as refrigerators (maintain a temperature as low as 34 degrees). 4) If wine storage is important, beverage centers will do a much better job than a dorm style refrigerator, as they maintain steady temperatures, rather than wildly fluctuating temperatures (if you remember the build-up of frost in the dorm style fridges, that is where that comes from) While these may or may not be important, I wanted to at least put them out there so you can make an informed decision. If you have further questions, put them on here, and I'm sure the group will try to answer!

As an alternative to recessing your full depth refrigerator, you could make that run of cabinets deeper if you have enough room to do so. We have a regular depth Samsung FD but it is in a wall of cabinets that we have pulled out an extra 6" from the wall (false wall behind top and bottom cabinets) so the side panels surrounding the fridge line up with the edge of the 30" deep counter next to it. Could you post a layout? Is the layout already set in stone or can you do tweaks like recessing the fridge into the wall or pulling the surrounding cabinets forward? Finding this forum was a mixed blessing for me since so much of my kitchen was unchangeable by the time I found it but I was so happy to get all the suggestions for the things I could still modify.

I just bought kitchen aid counter depth but really looked hard at the Bosch. The Bosch 800 series is the one with the dual compressors. I don't think the 500 series does. I really liked bosch but it was double price of KA. It sells on having a really great humitity and temperature control to keep produce fresher. I also like the model with the separate drawer. At first i thought gimmicky but wouldn't it be grate to access your crisper bins without opening the whole fridge? Also, if you do counter depth, don't go for external icemaker. Takes up too much space. The bosch 800 has an inside filter water.