Houston area advice - we shopped all the major kitchen stores, and ended up getting our appliances from several different places, depending on who had the best price, who had the most decent customer service for the item, etc. Not every distributor had every line. We ended up using a distributor on Richmond near Weslayan for our Thermador fridge and a distributor on Yale in the Heights for our Wolf cooktop. Dishwasher and wall ovens came from Sears. So there you go. About choosing your cooktop and oven - you and DH should have an honest conversation about what kind of cooking you do now, and want to do in the future. The cost of a chef quality cooktop or range is quite high compared to "regular" items, but if that kind of cooking is what you want then by all means you should splurge. If you are just happy to cook nice food and want a workhorse of an appliance, I think you can choose among many good reliable brands and be satisfied. Watch for specials at Sears because you can get a great deal on prices there if you catch a sale. Same with Lowe's and other big box stores.

Your builder should be able to get in touch with the vendor to provide samples and locations of each house in the area where the same colors were used for siding and roof. If the builder can't do it, contact CertainTeed directly.

Helen "As for dripping on toes, again I guess that's a personal thing, but I don't know what would be dripping especially since I would be able to better ensure that all items were level " It's a safety thing. I am not talking about a little drip but an accidental sloshing of a water bath, roasting pan with fat or unexpected bubbling of sphagetti sauce out of a pan onto your foot, ankle or leg. It can run in your shoe. This is also why I mentioned about the rolling racks here. They are a relatively new thing and some come out much more quickly and you can slosh liquids right out of the pan and burn yourself. I know people who have had bakeware shatter when taking it out of the oven because you exceed the thermal tolerances of the dish taking it out of the oven. You might have an unexpected child or animal come out of nowhere. You can teach and warn them to stay away from the stove and no matter how carefully you watch them, accidents happen. In my line of work I have seen people wind up with skin grafts with kitchen spills and resulting burns so I am more aware of these things than most people. No one intends for these things to happen and being a kitchen, you can't eliminate all risks but it is a good thing to be aware of them. I know you said you can only access all the wall ovens from the side so while a consideration for you, I have no trouble at 5'3", standing in front, as my oven door (Electrolux) is only about 20" tall (Bosch is 22 3/8) and I can reach the racks with my back straight and my arms bent, so not everyone loses "all ergonomic advantage" by choosing a pull down door and the protection of the door providing a barrier may be important. The great thing about this forum is that there are often many sides to a coin. You consider pull down oven door a hinderance while I consider it a benefit. Some people are strictly concerned with the design for its aesthetic value so make their choice based on that. Each person has to balance the benefits and risks of each configuration for themselves and their situation and the more information you can gather, the better the decision.

It's not about fanning one's food, it's about not melting in the Texas heat and not spending one's children's college tuition on the electrical bill for air conditioning! Sometimes the kitchen area can get quite hot depending on the amount of cooking one does. Clearly, the house needs fans, we can see them in other rooms. Then again, there are always those fans they make that you can wear around your neck, you can by them by the half-dozen for your whole family....:)