I've never rinsed dishes before putting them in my DW, and I've had 3 or 4 different makes. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have a DW! The dishes come out spotless and, by the way, the heated dry is turned off; just the remaining heat in the DW air dries them. In addition, this month's Consumers has done a report on DWs, and they make a point of the fact that a) prerinsing is not necessary and b) is a tremendous waste of water.

"Electrolux is pretty but is still a Frigidaire under the pretty." Electrolux OWNS Frigidaire not the other way around.Frigidaire is Elux's economy line! Does that mean they can't and don't make "Higher end" products?Of course not!!! I personally compared (3 of each) Miele ovens and Elux Ovens. The doors are thicker and smoother operating on the Elux's. Try pulling out a rack on both the Miele and the Elux, Only Now, is Miele beginning to use the glide out racks but I think only one is standard on their newest ones and you can buy the updated racks for the older ones now. Compare the display panel, The panel is much bigger , easier to read, and more intuitive on the Elux. The window glass is bigger and stays cooler than the Miele. Checks posts on performance of the two ovens. Elux uses actual temp sensors to tell when the oven has finished preheating, whilst Miele uses some kind of "Algorithym" if you check posts, you will see where some users say this "Algorithym" just doesn't work, when the Miele says it has finished it is no where near the temp you set it for. Read about the actual oven temps, Elux is right on the mark using any thermometer you wish. Reports here have said that the Miele can be as low as 50 degrees F from what you set it for, in fact one poster had the oven replaced and the new Miele still measured as her old one did. That can be dealt with using a "fudge factor" as far as baking goes, but is not necessary with the Elux, and in the rare even it is off by a few degrees, it can be calibrated via the wavetouch controls alto no users have posted the need to do so.The Elux is about half the price of the Miele! So Please read the various posts about the 2 ovens before typing such a statement as this: "Meile ovens are great and worth every penny." We've had the Elux Icon 30" oven/convection for more that 4 years now, trouble free, looks and cooks great, Antss and I are gonna "Do the Town" on the 2 grand I saved!! Gary

Our local SZ repair place is already getting parts in for this dishwasher. Although I find the name to be dumb, apparently they guarantee every single dish will be completely dry-not even the little dimple in the coffee cup will be wet. Not Miele or any other high end brand dishwasher currently offers this. I might be willing to work overtime to pay for this! With all my kids, half my dishwasher is plastic which means it's all wet and then has to sit all over my overpriced island to dry. 2,000 for all dry dishes might need to happen for me-now to just get my husband to agree!

Hey folks, Thanks for all of the earlier feedback. Demolition is well underway, and we are on to framing, and in a few weeks, plumbing/electrical. I need to finalize much of the kitchen layout ahead of plumbing rough-in. So I am updating this thread with current design in hope of getting additional feedback to see if there are any issues/concerns I haven't considered. (Let me know if it's best to start a new thread given the age of this post - I opted to keep it for continuity.) Latest floorplan: Orientation: North (top of diagram): living room area (open) South (bottom of diagram): dining room area (open) West (left of diagram): deck/water view Elevation of galley wall (east) Elevation of island (west) Based on the earlier feedback, we have: Aisle width: Increased the width between the island and galley/appliance wall to 42" Prep sink: Eliminated the prep sink - there didn't seem to be a compelling reason to have two sinks with this layout, and ultimately I didn't want to give up the cabinet / drawer space that this would impinge on Cleanup/Prep zone: Instead, placed dishwasher/sink/trash receptable on island in a way that hopefully creates reasonable separation of the cleanup, prep, and cooking zones (despite the fact that the prep and cleanup zones necessarily share a sink). Dishwasher: We opted to place the dishwasher on the left end of the island so that it was close to the dining area, next to the sink, and away from the cooking area. I considered moving this a little more to the center of the island to facilitate closer proximity to dish/flatware storage, but didn't like the fact that it would likely be close to the cooktop and further from dining area (i.e. inviting more traffic into cooking areas) Sink: We opted to place this to the right of the dishwasher so that it would be accessible to the cleanup area, adjacent to the prep area but mostly out of the way of the cooking area (it is not back to back with the rangetop) Trash: We opted to place this to the right of the sink so that it was near the prep area, but accessible from the cleanup area. (I read several threads that recommended trash being closer to prep area than cleanup area) Cooktop: Centered on the galley wall, both for aesthetics and function Ovens: I looked at a lot of layout options, and ultimately opted to stack the ovens bottom to top with a 30" Convection Wall Oven (bottom), 12" Warming Drawer (middle), and 24" Convection Steam Oven (top), with the 18" (tall) microwave being placed undercounter on the island, opposite the main oven stack. (All Miele - separate thread on this). The top of the oven stack is 68.5" off the ground in this configuration, which is roughly eye level for me (6' / 72" tall). The rationale was centered around assuming that the CSO would be the primary oven so we placed that in the most optimal spot, and that it would also be best to have that higher up for safety of venting steam. We also wanted to keep the warming drawer at an accessible level. The only downside is that the 30" CO/wall oven is at a less useful height (below counter), but there wasn't a great option that we liked for placing this at waist/eye level. I considered this acceptable if this is the secondary oven. We considered putting the microwave next to the refrigerator for easier access (seems like a lot of people like that), but ultimately decided that we liked the aesthetics of the current location + the increased pantry size that this offers. Thoughts/feedback/concerns on this layout? Overall I am pretty happy and thinks it meets most of our design goals but want to see if there are any yellow/red flags in what we have planned. The only things that are giving me a bit of pause are: Aisle width - Once demo is complete I am going to try to get some boxes to mock out the 42" wide aisle to see if that feels sufficient. Taped out, it seemed fine, and from reading this forum, it seems like a good number of folks "get by" with 42" despite multiple cooks, but I know there was feedback on this thread to get this to 48" as a more standard two-cook width. To do that, I would likely take up @buehl's suggestion and reduce the walkway behind the island, and potentially the size of the island itself. But I kinda like those dimensions and chose to compromise on the kitchen aisle width a bit. Dishwasher/sink placement - is this a good placement to have a good flow for prep, cooking, and cleanup? Cabinet / drawer layout - we have a few weeks before we place the cabinet order so have time to fine tune this still, so I plan to go over this more closely next so that I can optimize the layout for my storage needs. If there is anything immediately problematic it would be good to know! Thanks in advance for any insight, everyone has been immensely helpful in helping me with planning and design of this kitchen! Joe