Sabrina, this is very helpful! I’ve read some old comments regarding the Thermador oven fan being unusually loud. Have you experienced that as well? We are also considering the Thermador dishwasher and 30” fridge/freezer. How do you feel about these items? We may now be mixing appliance brands, which is not something I had considered previously.

So, if we go with the Miele ovens, we need to decide on a gas range top brand, as well as a brand for fridge/freezer and dishwasher.

I’d love your input!

I'd vote for the Miele as well for a few reasons, but most notably your interest in the fully plumbed option. We have the larger Miele convection oven with the fully plumbed combi steam oven above that. For context, depending on how you are planning to lay things out, the bottom oven has a drawer below it, so it starts about 12" off the ground. the top of the trim of the steam oven is right at 59" above the ground. My wife is 5'4" and zero problems (we have the "XL" size, not the "XXL," though). We use ours a lot, for a lot of things, and I can't imagine it not being fully plumbed and having to deal with opening the panels and shuttling water/drained water back and forth to the sink. Space hasn't been an issue for us so far with the larger oven below, and when it has, it's width, not height.

Oh, and on mixing, I think that's the best part since we could get what we really wanted for each. We have a six-burner Bluestar range top, Jenn-air (paneled) built in refrigerator, and Miele paneled dishwasher.

@S W, your input is very helpful! I am definitely convinced about going the Miele route for steam oven and 30" convection oven. I've heard the steam oven is being discontinued later this year, so I better order soon! I think it will be so convenient to go the plumbed route!

About your Bluestar....I've heard so many good things about these rangetops/ranges. The appliance store we are getting most things from doesn't carry Bluestar, so we are thinking of going with Wolf. However, it looks like Bluestar is available in my area (Minneapolis) and I could possibly order it separately from a different appliance center. My dilemma....is it worth dealing with two appliance centers? Is Bluestar far better than Wolf? I love to cook and I've done a lot of research on both of these, but I honestly don't know enough about my cooking style to know if I like an open burner vs. closed burner, or even how many BTUs are important to me. Any insight you can provide to help me make this 2nd big decision, would be very helpful. Thank you!!

I won't try to convince you on one over the other, but I wouldn't think dealing with two stores would bother me. In my case it really didn't matter because our remodeler deals with the brands enough that he wanted his own folks to install them, so we just had them delivered by the appliance center and he went from there.

Bluestar vs. Wolf: I think you really just need to see them both up close to see if the open burners would bother you aesthetically. We really like them and like the look of them (they just look serious :). Each burner has its own cast iron bottom mold and top grate (I think the wolf top grates are double deep?), and clean up is really, really easy. We just use a hot wash cloth or sponge and wipe down debris after use...any salt, cooked bits, etc., just falls through the bottom grate onto a slide out catch pan below, which we line with aluminum foil and replace periodically (If it's wet food spillovers, then obviously sooner, but the bottom grate catches most things). If you really need to, you can just take an individual burner's set of grates off and scrub it with soap/water.

The wolf is beautiful and was on our short list, so if you don't think you'd be able to live with the look of Bluestar, then you really can't do wrong either way. We were called by the afterburner BTUs of the bluestar and actually liked the more "component-like" structure of the grates/burners to clean as needed.

@S W, thank you so much for all of your insight. It sounds like it would definitely be worth it for me to research Bluestar a bit more, so I can at least do a good comparison. You are right in that I'm sure in the end, I can't truly go wrong. Again, I so appreciate you taking the time to review your Bluestar and your Miele products. So thankful for these discussion threads!

@S W great info. In our previous build we had a Bluestar we loved as well as a Miele dishwasher that was the best I'd ever had. We are getting ready to build again and am debating whether a steam oven is something I want. How do you use yours?