I'm sorry to hear about your negative experience seven years ago. I'd like to let you know about the steps we've taken to address the concerns you've raised since. First off, ownership of the business has changed and we now ship out of Buffalo, New York. Michelle is no longer with the company. We now maintain dramatically more stock in the US (and even some stock in Canada) to ship the vast majority of orders without requiring more stock to arrive from Europe. Additionally, our website now makes it more clear before checkout when items must come from Europe vs. when they're in stock in the US. Beside inventory counts, there is now a US (or Canadian, if applicable) flag shown beside the inventory counts that are available locally. If there is no stock locally, a German flag is shown. When adjusting quantities in your shopping cart before checkout, if you add more than the quantity in stock locally of an item, a German flag appears beside that item. Around 80% of orders placed on our own website (and 100% of orders on Amazon or Houzz) in the past month did not require any stock to come from Europe, included in this count is custom manufactured rugs which always come from Europe. The email templates have been standardized and streamlined. Customized software has been developed to reduce the possibility of human error when sending out timeframe and other emails. Additionally, there is better visibility of order status through a customized telephone system that allows you to query order status in case your Internet Service provider is not properly delivering emails or is erroneously sending them to spam. We also now allow you to check order status and communications by entering your order number in the search box. The clear majority of customers within the Continental US or Ontario/Quebec, Canada ordering standard production (not custom made) items now receive their order within one week from order placement. The exceptions to this are largely due to circumstances beyond our control such as inclement weather and customers providing incomplete or inaccurate shipping addresses. To Natasha's more recent comment, I searched for but could not find your order to investigate the situation. If this was an order placed on the Amazon Marketplace, Amazon policy does not recognize replacement shipments and thus we typically issue a full refund and encourage customers to place a new order if they still require the item. There have been additional steps taken since your comment was posted to help avoid shipping errors and improve inventory management. If you have remaining concerns, I'd be happy to help. Thank you, Tim Vita Futura Customer Support

Curlywillow - Winggert is correct, the backgaurd adds little to nothing to the front/back dimensions of the range. It functions more or less as a snorkle of sorts, raising the outlet point of excess heat from the oven. Of course, it protects your wall from splatters, and I would assume deters stuff running down your wall behind the range. Winngert - Thanks so much for your advice and patients. We received our Cafe on time and we're very happy with it so far. Some pleasant surprises and some disappointing ones also. One major disappointment was finding that the knobs were plastic. I get the feeling I'm working one of those stainless outdoor propane grills. Hell, I've touched knobs on a few of those things at Sam's Club that feel more substantial than the knobs on our range. Oh well,... guess I'll get over that. As for the back splash, Eric came home with a generic 30x36 sheet of brushed AND polished stainless steel. With a little construction cement, he fab'ed a splash WITH a bar to hang stuff. To my surprise, it really turned out attractive and doesn't have to ragged presentation of being homemade. When we took the polished sheet back, I also saw a quilted version that I honestly wished I had saw first. But the brushed sheet is a surprisingly good match. You'd be happy to know that he got the idea from your pic you so graciously reposted for me. Big thanks!!!! Also, I'm not hearing this big noise coming from fans like I've been reading about. I've done some baking over the holidays using both convention and convection modes, and no loud fans noises yet. Could this be a function of placement during install? I remember my brother taking the cowl off his VW beetle because it looked cool watching the fan spin,... he burned the engine up because the cowl promoted keeping the air-cooled engine cool. Idiot! Maybe there are some clearance issue,.. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Haven't used the lower oven yet,... which I plan to do tonite. Anyway,.. thanks again Winggert!

Evilbunnie (and I love that name!), I definitely don't think your post was finger-waggie. You brought up some excellent points that I hadn't considered, such as contingencies, the my possibly unrealistic $5k remaining budget, etc. What sealed the deal for me on my decision was when I sat down with my trusty Excel spreadsheet, with this forum's advice in mind and the pricing I'd done on the things I wanted, and laid out a 3-step, 2-3 year plan. Even with doing mid-range components (nothing super expensive, but better than rock bottom), I came up with $17,500 for my total. And that's if everything had gone right. I cancelled the cabinets the next morning. I decided that I simply could not afford to do what I wanted to do with my kitchen. I would rather do a $500 patch job to get me some temporary storage and to knock out the wall to give me more open space, than to spend, say, $10k or $12k and end up with a kitchen that I just wasn't happy with. And truth be told, things always go wrong, don't they? To do what I really wanted to do, it probably would've ended up at $20k if not more. The fact is, I'm 27 and I still have student loan debt. I have a secure job that I love, but that doesn't pay awfully well (I'm a writer for my state's fish and wildlife agency). My budget is tight with a mortgage on one income and this economy is just plain scary. My cash needs to stay in my savings account. Your advice and everyone else's brought me back to earth. And I am SO thankful for that. It's a tough lesson to learn, but we just can't have everything we want at this moment, right? I believe we can have what we want, but slowly and with planning and hard work and good old-fashioned saving money. I am so glad to have changed my mind before it was too late. And how wonderful to be adopted! :)

Both major box stores have policies in place that prohibit giving customers copies of designs or detailed quotes until the kitchen is purchased. That policy gets violated frequently, but they are starting to crack down on it. Too many people take the work elsewhere and they lose the sale. KM is a mid grade cabinet. American Woodmark/Shenendoah is not. It's higher builder grade. The finish quality isn't as smooth and consistent and it lacks sizes and features found in a mid grade line. The Savannah doorstyle in the paint and glaze is the most expensive door in the line, and there are several doors in KM or Diamond/Thomasville that would be cheaper if you could give up some of the detailing. You could have better construction and a better finish simpky by moving to partial overlay door and giving up the glaze. It's dated, even here where trends take forever to reach. A door that is less fussy would stand the test of time better as well. Not shaker though, as that's being overdone. I'd expect cabinets for your room to be in the 10-12K range in a plain paint partial overlay door in a mid grade line. 7-10K in a high builder line. The better hardware and finish is worth paying the difference for. The useless 20% charge to ''upgrade'' to plywood is certainly NOT worth paying for. That money is better spent on moving up to the better line, or a useful upgrade like more drawers. The layout needs tweaking though. It isn't that functional.