Quality Appliances for the Home

The Look

Integrated Appliances: Integrated appliances are those that use wood cabinet fronts and blend into your kitchen, giving a warm feeling of furniture cabinetry. This is a great option when your kitchen and family room blend together. Typically, you can get refrigerators, dishwashers, hoods, icemakers and compactors with a wood panel option.

Stainless Look: The "stainless look" is available in most brands and is the trend these days. It is a smart investment if you are considering the resale value of your home. Stainless steel is the new neutral finish. It simply mirrors whatever you do in the room, so it will match any cabinetry finish and blend with contemporary or traditional styles. Stainless is easy to keep clean and looking nice IF you use a stainless steel cleaner. Glass cleaner will not do.

Professional Style: The stainless steel pro-style appliances usually have bar-style handles, large knobs, high-power features and come with a pro-style price tag. But they are a great investment if you enjoy entertaining and cooking. We'll look more at the pro-style under "Your family's needs".

PRO-STYLE FEATURES	STANDARD FEATURES
Four or more burners at 15,000 BTUs	Assortment of burners at 5,000 to 14,000 BTU with options for one or two high-powered burners
Large control knobs usually placed on the front of the unit	Small knobs or digital control panel
Gas burners with electric convection oven, referred to as "Duel Fuel"	Gas or electric cooktop with an oven using the same heat source
Commercial stainless steel look, with options for specialty finishes	Black, White, Biscuit or Stainless in the more expensive units
Multiple oven racks	Not as much flexibility in placement of racks
True European convection with the third hidden element at convection fan	Usually the convection feature is an additional fan to help circulate the heat, without additional element
30", 36", 48" (large & small oven), and 60" (2 large ovens) wide	30" wide
GAS TOP	ELECTRIC TOP
Precise temperature control, quick response	High quality units offer fast heat response, lower end models take a bit more time
Grates on top with either burner bowls or sealed burner system	Ceramic surface adds a clean line to the countertop and means you never have to clean spilled sauce out of a burner cavity again.
RANGE	WALL OVEN & COOKTOP
Pro-style Ranges are beautiful and functional. Keeping your cooking in one area is handy, but consider placing food in and out of the oven. Will the low height of the large range be a back problem?	Using a wall oven and cooktop gives you design flexibility because you can put the cooktop in one place in the kitchen and your oven can go in another. If you enjoy baking or entertaining, perhaps you need a double wall oven. If one oven is enough, consider using the "stack" we recommend in our design studio. A convection microwave placed over a 30" convection oven with a warming oven below.
VENTILATION
When using pro-style cooking equipment, make sure you have adequate ventilation. You have an option of using a "remote" power unit which will cut down on some of the noise in the kitchen. The power needed with a large pro-range is 600 CFMs to 1,200 CFMs, depending on the size of the range.

Your Budget
No doubt that a pro-style kitchen will be more expensive, but perhaps not as much as you would expect. High quality cooking equipment, whether in pro-style or the sleeker designer lines, is expensive. Your kitchen appliances will be used each and every day for years to come. They can make your kitchen a pleasant place for the family to gather or to entertain.

If you compare a group of appliances in most high-end lines (Wolf, Dacor, Thermador), your prices will usually be within a few hundred dollars. If you are on a tighter budget, you may choose to use higher quality pieces in the areas that matter most to you, and go with less expensive pieces in areas that don't get as much use.

Some lines offer a "Good, Better, Best" variety of styles. If you want a specific brand, investigate all the different options that brand offers.

Service
As you shop for quality features and innovative design in your appliances, make sure you also check locally to make sure you have access to qualified service and repair specialist. We make a point in our market (Jackson, MS) to ensure that our rural customers can get service on their appliances before we sell them.