Hi This is my first post, but I did a ton of reading on this site so I guess it's time to give back! We are in the middle of a kitchen remodel and the major appliances are installed since July 5th. In our new kitchen we choose the Elux Wave Touch oven EW30EW5CGS (single 30 inch) based on the feedback we read on this site. I can only assume the double oven you are looking at will be as nice as the single one we purchased. The wave touch control works very well and is not so hard to use or to keep clean. The single oven takes about 7 minutes to go from room temp to 350F using the rapid preheat or 10 minutes if using normal mode. The two easy glide racks are very smooth, Interior lights are also very good. But most important it bakes very well. For the refrigerator we also decided to go counter depth for many reasons. First, we have a large freezer in the basement and another full size refrigerator in the garage. Second, our kitchen is small and the fridge and oven are on the same wall, so going counter depth makes for a nicer layout in our case. We looked at many refrigerators from LG, Samsung, Jen-Air, KitchenAid, GE etc, but my wife fell in love with the Elux French Door counter depth model EW23BC85KS also with Wave touch. It's not too small at 22.6 cu ft for a counter depth fridge, but still fits nicely in a 24 inch depth cabinet unlike some models we looked at that are advertised as counter depth but have a 28 inch depth. The Elux refrigerators received many bad reviews in the last few years because of the many problems with the ice maker. However the new models released this year have new ice makers and so far they seem to work very well. The only negative on the fridge, the water coming from the dispenser is not cold. But for us this is minor since the fridge produces enough ice (dual ice maker) to please a polar bear or to keep up with a family of six (4 kids) during the hot summer weeks we just experienced. In this model all the drawers are self closing, also a nice touch. Good luck in your decision making process it's not easy... .

Thanks, lascatx. I had read one of your posts where you described taping the wall. Great idea. I have looked at the Thermador instructions a few times and am a little puzzled by the concept of "furniture return" because it looks like three pieces of not very wide board. I did finally find and download a much longer and more complete set of instructions from their website. Cabinet installer is suggesting a plywood end panel, but the last thing we want is for it to fall over and kill someone. Maybe appliance installer would have a better thought. Next step is to call Thermador. It would be so much easier if I could put even a narrow cabinet of some type at the end. I appreciate your advice. Don't have a KD because it is pretty straightforward cab replacement, except for this issue! Went from freestanding to built in. More to follow... thanks again.

Oh, golly, golly, I'm so thrilled that you all have taken the trouble to read my tome and offer comments! Thank you, dianalo, rhome and bmorepanic! I really appreciate the suggestions and will give all of them some thought because that is exactly what I was hoping to get: fresh eyes that haven't been over and over the same old thinking, as I have by now. A few quick thoughts: rhome: It's a good point about the small size of the counter to left of the sink (between DW and sink). I gave it that space just as elbow room in case I do have the DW elevated above the counter. Without that space, I thought it would make it feel like you were doing dishes with the sink nearly touching a wall because of the vertical side of the raised DW cab. I am definitely not wedded to it, nor to the little 6" space on the other side of the DW. That's probably going to evaporate, anyway, (except for an inch or to of framing to keep the DW door from being slap against the wall) because the room is about 2.5 inches out of square in that corner. Odds are on that I either a) won't have any DW or b) will have it at normal counter height merely to use as an expensive dish drying rack. I plan to set up the finalized "test" kitchen, and work it, live with all appliances and water installed, before we go too much further along. It'll be ugly as Hell, but I've lived with inconvenient and ugly for years. So getting it down to just one annoyance in the name of making sure I've got it right seems like a good trade-off. Since both rhome and bmorepanic have identified issues about the corner pantry area, that obviously needs more thought. The 30" door is fairly fixed in position; it can't move south (it may be possible to move it north) because this is a timber-framed building and its southern edge is right against an unmoveable framing member. That's what the small box with an X in it signifies. (Note the similar one on the opposite side behind the range; that one controls the placement of the stove vent hood.) I thought the diagonal step-in gave me more storage space than truncating it by running it straight across. The little closet is just a niche to store the fire extinguisher and emergency supplies. My current fridge probably won't last too many more years and then I thought a FD model would give me more useable space in front, which is why I'm planning for a larger appliance in that space from the start. bmorepanic's mention of the grocery-to-house pathway brings me to an admission about one of the driving forces of my plan. The grocery arrival path is actually through the sitting room door at the top of the drawing. One of my biggest issues with this house is the traffic flow from the outside to inside. It's a direct collision of three things: a)I live in a region of the country where no matter how formal the house, nobody except dead people in coffins ever uses the front door of farmhouses; b) even if I could manage to change this deeply-ingrained cultural pattern, the classical "front" Greek Revival facade of my house - complete with double door flanked by side and transom lights and appropriately dressed with columns and pilasters - is inaccessible to anyone who arrives by car; and c) it makes me ab-so-lute-ly nuts not to have a distinct, graduated, intimacy progression from outside to inside. This is the one thing (perhaps even more than the non-functional kitchen) which is at the root of this upheaval. I figure since I can't change either the people or the surroundings, the one thing I can change is the pathway they follow. So I've decided to alter the room functions to match my sensibilities; when people approach the house (by the inevitable backdoor entrance) they will find themselves, whether they like it or not, in my public reception rooms, leading to my formal rooms (sitting room, office, etc.). Buried deeper within the house are the rooms I consider more private, like the kitchen. It goes against the modern grain, I know, but to me kitchens are personal workspaces, truly the "heart of my private home", which is not something that I like to share with visitors. And definitely not where I want to entertain casual visitors from the census taker to local politicians stumping for votes to the man who comes to see me about the fencing. Right now the kitchen is the first space inside the house. Meh! It's not like I want to show off to my visitors or them feel uncomfortable - even my "formal" sitting room is very low key and approachable, and relaxed. But I so much want - and need - that step-wise gradation of intimacy, that I'll do anything to get it. I have gone and back and forth and back again weighing this. But in the end I have decided that if I can arrange my rooms to satisfy how I like and still leave the structure largely changed (because it is so old and I don't want to make structural changes), I'm willing to make some sacrifices: such as I'll have to bring the groceries in through the sitting room (actually the current kitchen) to get to my new kitchen. The additional the distance is only about about 6 feet longer (immaterial at a farm where the cars are stored in barns at least fifty feet away, not in attached garages), and it's unlikely it will be embarassing to us to haul the groceries through the sitting room, since we'll be the only ones present while hauling! I will put some more thought into the corner step-in area and see how it can be improved. Your observations are very useful to my planning. I truly appreciate the time and trouble you have taken. I'll post some updated sketches in this thread rather start a new one. May I also say thank you for your kind words about my amateur drawings. I have struggled to the point of tears trying to use computer room planning software. And because so many people who ask for advice have mastered this, until now, I have been too abashed by my lack of skill to post without a computer drawing. Back soon, with another version(s) of the corner pantry area. Anybody else want to put in their two cents? Nancy

Your kitchen layout looks fabulous...Here is a link to a great kitchen with three huge windows over sink as focal point...similar to your inspiration kitchen. (It's the Cote de Texas site with 101 great kitchen elements). http://cotedetexas.blogspot.com/2009/01/kitchens-101-elements-to-copy. You should also look at jen4268's posting of the update of her gorgeous creamy kitchen. She has three beautiful windows above her sink...