When is a sale not a sale? When you buy something that isn't what you really want or need. Ordinarily, this would be the point where I say they all get hot and you have a budget, so stick to it. And I'm very anti credit card. But in this case I think there's a real safety issue. The Frigidaire might be perfectly fine under ordinary circumstances, but what about extraordinary ones? What if you have a grease spill and there's a flare up. You won't be able to shut off the stove!! What if you're cooking up a storm and everything is just plain hot? And you have to lean over it to reach the knobs? I think in this case it's worth the extra money for a safer unit and an additional vent hood. Though you could try to talk them into a sale on the hood too. Keep talking. That's how salesmen make sales. You just need to sell the salesman. So, hard questions: Can you really pay off the whole thing before the interest kicks in? Can you set up automatic payments or something so that they never ever have an excuse to charge you interest early? Will you be giving up something else you really really need if you get the better range? One of the few things I, the anti-credit card person, thinks one should take out a loan for (i.e., using credit) is a necessary appliance. A range is a necessary appliance. A safe range is a more necessary appliance. Zero interest is very attractive, if you can and will actually pay it off. Do you have $150/mo. to put toward it? If you can't pay it off in 18 months, can you afford the interest and get it paid off soon thereafter? If you can afford it, I say get the safer range and separate vent, and be happy.

We've hired two. Each cost $125.00 per hour. In our case essentially both were a waste of money. The first one was well known, had kitchen's featured in magazines, won contests from Subzero and similar companies. She actually had great ideas but was constantly screwing up. She mis-measured on several occassions and I was never confident it was right. She would produce drawings that were impossible to visualize (the peninsula ended up overlapping a window in one drawing). I had requested over and over a prep sink in the island. The drawings came back without it and when I called her on it she said she didn't think it was needed but would request it be added. She had the drawings redone, and subsequently billed me the time to redo them. She called one day in the beginning and told me she stopped at the flooring store to look at floor choices (this was before we even had a design) and I was billed for the time! Keep in mind this was NOT something she asked me about in advance. We ended up parting ways after she became ill and couldn't continue with the project, which kept me from having to fire her. I knew she was capable of some beautiful work and I wanted it to work with her so badly that initially I kept making excuses for her . In the end, I spent about 2k and basically had nothing to show for it (except some ideas) Her plans had the beautiful elements & materials I wanted but not the additional space. The next one was a very nice lady with good ideas but they always exceeded our budget. We spend about 1600.00 with her. She made up a plan that had "some" of the space we wanted but in the end the budget would not allow us to add on the space and keep the materials we wanted. I could accept that, however knowing it in the beginning would have saved us a lot of $$-- Both designers knew out of the gate that our main objective was to add space and that if we were going to invest in construction of an addition, I needed the kitchen to have the elements and materials I really wanted. I truly believe the 2nd designer thought she was working within the budget and didn't purposely decieve us, where I believe the first one was milking us for any time she could but wanted to give us a knock your socks off kitchen in the small space we already had. The nice thing about independent designers was that they aren't married to a specific brand. The first designer worked a lot with a local custom cabinetmaker and for about 12K we were getting painted white cabinetry that looked beautiful! I later went to Home Depot for a "free" design, (which by the way was not free unless we paid for an in home measurement, at least in my area)and the KD there used our construction design to quote cabinets for us and a medium quality was about 25k!) So I think you end up paying for the designer one way or another~ We never ended up doing our kitchen since our wants exceeded our means. We've decided to move all together and while we can't "design" the kitchen we can possibly make some modifications and i am already stressing about the whole process all over again.

[https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-work-with-an-interior-designer-stsetivw-vs~3293842[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-work-with-an-interior-designer-stsetivw-vs~3293842) [https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-work-with-a-color-consultant-stsetivw-vs~3004543[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-work-with-a-color-consultant-stsetivw-vs~3004543) [https://www.houzz.com/magazine/working-with-pros-when-you-just-need-a-little-design-guidance-stsetivw-vs~26866496[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/working-with-pros-when-you-just-need-a-little-design-guidance-stsetivw-vs~26866496) [https://www.houzz.com/magazine/8-things-interior-designers-want-you-to-know-stsetivw-vs~17340757[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/8-things-interior-designers-want-you-to-know-stsetivw-vs~17340757) ^I posted a few brief articles that give tips on hiring a designer. I agree with the above about making sure you find out how well the designer communicates/works with their clients. Everyone has a communication style and if you and your designer can't communicate well, it will be a disaster (ask me how I know). Referrals are important, but not the only thing because that person making the referral may have a different communication style that works with the ID. Ask to see completed projects and portfolios. Make sure you have a budget in mind and discuss it at the interview. Others will have more tips for you, I am coming from the consumer side. EDIT: GN Builders is right about HGTV (entertainment) and real life design services.

I couldn't quite determine if you are willing to go with a top load washing machine or are set on a front loader from your opening post. If you wanted to go top load washer, yes, the opinions of the 2018 Speed Queens are not rosy. However, the reviews of the commercial top loading Maytag are quite positive. Someone more studious on this topic than me hopefully will come along and provide a link to video and comments about this commercial Maytag machine for you. You might be interested in it. Conversely, I would suspect that coming from european FL washers, you might find a top load washer to be not quite up to snuff or speed regarding spin speeds. I would definitely not want to use a ventless or condenser dryer with a top loading washing though. It would take weeks to get a load dry, due to the lower spin speeds a TL can offer. For me, a vented traditional dryer would be a must in that scenario. Speed Queen, from what I understand is still manufacturing a front load model for residential use, but it's the unitized washer/dryer stacked model. If you didn't mind having the units attached such as this, it might be of interest to you. We have one or a couple members here with the unitized SQ FL seem to be pleased with them, minus a minor glitch or two. Most machines have their "glitch" issue. Not wishing for too much 'tech' on your machines, maybe looking into the unitized SQ FL would be worth your while. They are pricey, but you have the Miele budget already in hand, and these are not as costly as Miele. Close, but not that high. Good luck, and welcome back to the states.