What kind of cooking do you do? How do you use your oven? What size Rangetop? Do you have a budget in mind?

I cook frequently but don't entertain often, and I am limited to electric. I bought an induction range with convection option for the oven, and I am very happy with it. I will never go back to using "standard" electric stoves, and will never be happy without convection in my oven. I don't have a microwave, and until recently have been also using a Breville Smart Oven, which I loved. I recently replaced it with a counter top Cuisinart Steam Oven, and I'm not sure I'm sold on it -- might go back to my Breville.

I have one house with a DF range (Lacanche). The range is excellent. It has one electric and one gas oven. I like them both.

In a different house I have an induction cooktop with a bank of wall ovens (Gaggenau). I much prefer this set up. I like wall oven better than a range. My wall ovens have swing out doors which I love. Induction is a million times better than gas because it involves zero clean up and I am both lazy and a bit of a neat freak- plus I like the responsiveness.

I have a combi steam oven in both houses. Miele, installed under the counter on a skinny island, for the Lacanche house, and a Gagg one in the induction house. The CSO has been the best thing ever about my upgraded kitchens (I went from coil top electric to these two kitchens, so the upgrade was huge.)

Bosch makes side opening wall ovens (same parent company as Gagg.)

PS Bluestar makes side opening ovens as well.

PS About the Breville toaster oven, I used to have one. It is an awesome machine. If you have room for one, I would definitely get it. It is especially nice if you have children. I miss mine.

@wekick - Thank you for asking. I do much stir-frying and pan-frying. Mostly Asian cooking and sometimes Italian. The oven would be mostly used for baking cakes. I'm thinking of a 36" rangetop as it seems that most of the cooktops out there has the most powerful burner in the center, and with a 14" wok, it means I can't cook anything else on the side. Prefer to stick to under $10k for all the kitchen appliances, apart from the fridge.

@Toronto Veterinarian Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me! I'm glad you are very happy with your range & convection oven. Will look up the Breville Smart Oven. :)

If you like Asian style cooking, then you may want to consider a Bluestar range top. They have very powerful burners that are especially good for wok cooking. Then consider a more basic oven, like the lowest level Bosch perhaps.

@Rita - The oven wing out doors sounds awesome! I've never used induction before - was it as easy to control the heat as compared to gas cooking? It seems like the unspoken "rule" is to buy the range and ovens of the same brand so that they co-ordinate but I'm glad you shared that they do not have to be. So glad you were able to upgrade from electric to induction - I've used electric and did not like it at all. Will definitely be looking at the CSO and the Breville toaster oven for the new home!

@Rita - got it! Shall explore the Bluestar range top and the Bosch oven. Thanks again!

Induction is extremely easy to control. You might want to see if any of the appliance showrooms near you have a live induction cooktop for you to try. The Miele showrooms are particularly nice in that way- they also have fantastic demonstrations/cooking classes for using the CSO.

The rule here on GW/Houzz is to buy appliances for what they do best and what you care about the most. So for some that could mean a high powered fancy range top and mid grade refrigerator and oven. See Jerry's kitchen with the lovely Bluestar oven and Wolf cooktop (to say nothing of all the beautiful things that come out of those appliances :-)

I love Chinese food a great deal, but am not much of a Chinese cook (Fuchsia Dunlap's books have helped, but I am still pretty incompetent at that cuisine, despite it being one of my favorites,) so I can't tell you how well wok cooking goes on induction.

I am going to look for some YouTubes for CSOs and Bluestar for you.

@Jerry Jorgenson Wow! Thanks for sharing the photos! Your oven looks so fancy! You and your family must be seasoned bakers! You definitely got me considering to pick a wall oven and a french door version no less!

Miele CSO demonstration YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Cz9WSCsuk

Bluestar wok cooking YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW1GeFRklD4

Carina. Before the kitchen remodel (not quite two years ago), the kitchen was unusable. No working cooktop, a mostly broken oven, and a rotted out under sink cabinet. So the first real cooking started after the remodel.It's so convenient I now cook all the time.

Grinding the grain for bread and chickpeas for muffins gives better control over the ingredients. (The Komo grain mill is shown in the overall kitchen photo.) The 42" Rachiele sink really helps to because all the prep work can be done in the sink rather than on the counter, so practically no cleanup is necessary. Baked items are prepared on the mobile baking table, which has worked out far better than an island because the kitchen is small (at least compared to many of the photos I see on Gardenweb where the kitchen appears to be larger than our entire house :-).

Carina, There are many topics here about induction vs gas, also on Chowhound's cookware forum. You can really get an idea about using woks. Here are a few.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/appl/query/Induction-wok/nqrw

This is the Chowhound forum.

https://www.chowhound.com/cookware

I prefer gas and I would certainly look at a BlueStar rangetop that has the uncapped star burners. There are a couple of advantages to it for stir frying. It has high BTUs but more importantly, there is no burner cap. This is what it looks like. This keeps the heat towards the middle of the pan.

The burner tray is open meaning that is breaks down for cleaning and has a pull out tray underneath to catch spills. The ring burner

This is a capped ring burner, also a BlueStar but not the burner they are known for. As you turn it up high you get more flare.

It has a sealed burner tray that does not allow spills to go through.

I would pick the rangetop and ovens separately, especially in your case to get the best of each for your purposes. I would consider a 30" rangetop and maybe add a couple of portable induction plates. Also consider what ventilation you will need. It should be included in your budget. Whatever is left can go to the oven. :-)

@wekick - Thanks for the detailed info and your valuable suggestions! I will definitely add the Bluestar rangetop to our research. I've never had uncapped burners so this is all new to me.

I have cooked on gas, electric and now induction. I do a lot of stir fry but not usually in a wok. I will not go back to gas or electric after cooking on induction. I bought the Bosch 800 36" induction cooktop and I bought the lower end 500 series Bosch convection oven since most of my cooking is done on the cooktop and I rarely use the oven.

I love induction so much that i use a portable induction burner that sits on top of a nice gas range! We are also getting a Miele combi oven.

When I built my dream kitchen, which I sadly had to sell due to my divorce, I used the following:

• GE 5 burner gas range. It was not a continuous grate burner so it wasn't as easy to move pots and pans around but it worked. If I were to do it again, I would look at Induction but, then I would have to replace all of my cookware. And I have a lot of money in my cookware. My wonderful ex-wife let me keep all the kitchenware. I would go with gas again, and with a 5 or 6 burner on a continuous grate cooktop. And, a separate wok burner. If I could afford it, I would go with Thermador as I like their star shaped burner.
• I had a GE Double Wall Oven. Both were electric and convection. Gas is a moist heat due to it's combustion and most baking needs dry heat. I would go with it again. And, I would look at a double door like the one above. Blodgett or similar. It makes more sense.
• I have OTC/OTR microwaves. I had the microwave in a cubby but it wasn't near the cooking area in that house. I would look at a drawer micro or mount it in a cabinet mid height. I would NOT get a Double Oven where one is a microwave.
• I only had one dishwasher in the old house. I would have two dishwashers in the new kitchen. One a standard dishwasher and one a drawer unit for quick wash like glasses, utensils, but NEVER knives.
• Knives need to be out of the way but accessible. In the old house, I just had them in a block. I know have them on the wall on a magnetic bar designed for knives. Much better.
• Another thing I would do in my new dream kitchen would be to move as much stuff off the counters as possible. And have more plug-ins. And more lighting.

Those are my thoughts, from an amateur chef who has had recipe's published in popular magazines.

@Dan Thank you so much for taking time to share your thoughts! I share much of your ideas for the dream kitchen. May I ask why you would not have a double oven where one is a microwave? Is it because you find that microwave is more likely to be replaced/repaired earlier than an oven? I thought the combination oven isn't a bad choice especially in a small kitchen.

@Jerry Jorgenson Thanks for sharing further details of your kitchen! It's funny how you say that some of the kitchens you see appear to be larger than your entire house. I can't help but laugh as it's the same way with us!

" I would look at a drawer micro"

I think drawer microwaves are a great idea for microwave users (I haven't had one in years, but I'd definitely get a drawer if I was getting one!).

I like the flexibility of having two oven's. Especially for the holidays. I always like too have a lot of side dishes and they all cook at different temps. Plus I want a big bird for leftovers.

Having a separate message feeds up the oven for more cooking and fees up the nuker for reheating stuff

We chose our Lacanche range because it allowed us to configure both gas and induction burners, and dual ovens. Because of placement issues in our kitchen, we were looking for a range that had all these features. The only thing missing was a digital timer, but that was solved by adding an Amazon Spot.

I love being able to boil water in seconds on induction, and also being able to stir fry on our round bottomed wok with high heat on gas. Our induction burners do get more use, but I like the versatility of our configuration. We had to buy new pots that were induction compatible but we also had some older non-replaceable, specialized pots that can only be used with gas.

Our range also has two ovens, both electric convection. The larger oven fits both our full sized muffin pan and roasting pan that were too large for our old 30" Kitchen Aid range. We also found the narrower, vertical oven surprisingly versatile - it heats up quickly, and we can still fit in our casserole dishes.

" Gas is a moist heat due to it's combustion and most baking needs dry heat"

Combustion of gas releases some water but so does food that is cooking. Gas ovens have a lot more ventilation than electric ovens to allow the products of combustion to be removed. This means that you have more heat and moisture released into the kitchen with a gas oven. With more air moving through the oven, it is actually more superficially drying to the surface of what you are cooking and that is why people report better browning. It is also more difficult to keep added steam in a gas oven if you want it while baking bread. Baking is complex and during the rise for cakes, breads and muffins, more superficial moisture promotes starch gelatinization which allows a little better rise. Electric ovens have less air moving through and tend to hold on to what moisture is released from food. A convection fan can add more drying for browning and crispiness when you need it. There is a chef who bakes cakes on standard bake until the rise is complete and then opens the oven briefly to allow steam to escape and turns the convection fan on to get better browning towards the end.

So we went to check out some of the recommended kitchen appliances at Pacific Sales and I was convinced that we will go with a gas rangetop and a single convection wall oven for the new kitchen.

We would either go with a 30" gas rangetop or perhaps a 36" gas rangetop with griddle as I rarely use more than 2 or 3 burners each time and a 27" or 30" single wall oven. I hope the single wall oven doesn't look weird. The features/benefits of the Miele's rangetop caught my fancy but I can't seem to find much reviews on it, even on Houzz. For whatever reason, I still like the round shaped sealed burners more than the star shaped ones. Ease of cleaning is important to me.

I love the idea of a french door oven but because the oven will be located by an adjoining wall of a small L-shape kitchen, I would not be able to open it fully and might risk burning my arms, so the standard wall oven it is.

To stretch my appliance budget, I'll most likely forgo the built in microwave and just use a OTC microwave. We thought the Breville Smart Oven Air is really cool and we plan to get this in the near future for quick baking/reheating/air-frying/dehydrating food.

I hope you don't mind me airing my thoughts. :)

Stay away from American Range. 6 years of trouble.

Blue Star gas rangetop is wonderful.

Frigidaire refrigerator and freezer is a mixed bag. Freezer is fine, but the door gasket had to be changed twice on the refrigerator in 6 years. After 3 years old, Frigidaire quit using double seal door gasket, so I can't get the original gasket any longer. The single seal gasket is thicker, and this causes the refrigerator door to stick out more than the freezer door. They are side by side so it is noticeable. The single gasket also does not seal as well. Sometimes, the door alarm sounds which means the door is not completely shut. I hate the single seals. Too easy to open because they don't seal well. The refrigerator is also not as cold now. Frigidaire and American Range are both off my future buying list.