Completely off topic - Kitchen Appliance Forums

We recently purchased all new appliances for our first home. We went with matching stainless steel Kitchen Aid dishwasher, electric stove, microwave. They work great and look awesome. I only wish we could afford to remodel the rest of the kitchen. I think consumer reports magazine just recently (Jan?) reviewed kitchen appliances. Their website could probably tell you the issue that covered them. Good luck.

One way to save money on a kitchen remodel is to ignore what you see in the magazines and configure a kitchen for how you actually live. The current trend is to overbuild the kitchen because the kitchen is seen as the focal point when you have guests/parties/family gatherings. If that's really part of your lifestyle, then maybe you do need the double ovens, multiple dishwashers, full size freezer, multiple refrigerator draws, six to eight burner stoves, islands w/ prep sinks, etc. Doing a realistic assessment of what you'll use the kitchen for and matching those needs will allow you to spend your money where it will have the biggest impact.

The other big cost saver is don't overspend on your cabinets. Stay with standard sizes.

For best appliance values I recommend GE and KitchenAid.

We are looking to move and I had had the idea of making the kitchen kind of a "designer kitchen". I had thought that viking would be the way to go so I am glad to hear about the problems noted above. One of the posters specifically commented on the viking "consumer" models. Do these same issues hold true for the professional models like you would see in a restaurant? These are the ones that I had considered.

Thanks so much everyone for taking the time to input. We do use the kitchen a lot, fortunately it is relatively separate from the area we have our two channel. The issue of noise is definitely there and the Bosch certainly sounds good. We are definitely not looking for audio jewellery - kitchen style. The epinions and Cr were excellent sites to check out things. Marco - interesting to hear about viking, they are an interesting story I remember reading about, sorry to hear of the problems. Again thanks for the help and I will let you know how it goes, in some fashion

Gary

One of the posters specifically commented on the viking "consumer" models. Do these same issues hold true for the professional models like you would see in a restaurant?

I doubt you'll ever see an Viking "Professional" ranges in restaurants. Their "Professional" line was specifically designed to take the features and look of a restaurant range, and ad ammenities that make it more friendly to the home environment (most notably insulated walls and SS ignition and dual-fuel option). The Viking appliances I was referring to ARE from the "Professional" line. I'm not sure what the "Consumer" line is - could be the "Designer" series they put out, which are mostly cooktops. The basis for Viking is that it is marketing its products to consumers and not to restaraunts. When they work, they do work superbly in my experience, but the repair rate is really poor. If I were buying a stove again I'd look to another company like Thermador or Wolf (the latter which you definitely would see in restaurants - though they do make various grades of ranges). As I understand it most restaurant ranges are built without insulation in the walls, as stand-alones that are not meant to be installed with a cabinet around them. The guy who started Viking was supposedly inspired by his wife's request for a restaurant-grade range that she could install in their home kitchen. The entire product line was designed with the home-consumer in mind and was the beginning of this trend of adding insulation to the walls of restaurant ranges to make them safe for home installation. BTW if you do get a range like one of these don't even think about skimping on the hood or you will be very sorry. Get a hood with a blower motor that is a bit beyond the capacity for the total BTU output of your range. I think you also need to take the size of the room into consideration as well.

Quiet fridges are more the norm these days, rather than the exception. The GE Monogram stuff I've seen seems to be pretty quiet, as are Sub-Zero if you want to spend that kind of money.

Marco