Hi all,

This is my first real post, but I've been lurking here since our last kitchen remodel in Dec '12. That time we did a full Monogram kitchen with an induction cooktop and an Advantium oven as the highlights. Unfortunately we lost that kitchen after only 6 months of enjoyment when our house was consumed by the Black Forest wildfire last summer.

We broke ground on the rebuild last week, and my wife and I are knee deep in the kitchen planning. This go around we are leaning towards a full Thermador package. The preliminary plan is to do a 30" Freedom fresh column with an 18" frozen, a non-freedom 36" induction, and a Professional steam oven and regular oven. Naturally, we would be getting the "free" Sapphire dishwasher and hood. I've done a ton of research on this and other sites and while I totally get that we've bought into their "package marketing", I still feel this is a very good package for the price. It ticks the boxes that I want--separate compressors for the fridge and freezer, an oven with real knobs (vs a touch panel), and an induction burner big enough for our largest Le Cruset oval French oven. I will miss my beloved Advantium, but I'm really jazzed about the steam oven. My wife and I are both passionate cooks and we intend to put these units through their paces.

Our last fridge was a 36" Jenn-Air so this will be our first experience with a built in fridge. My wife wants to have some separation between the fridge and freezer (she loves the picture with a wine rack between the units). My thought is to keep them together to make the kitchen more "future proof" in case one or more of the units goes south on us. I think it would be better to keep a 48" opening since that should always be an option from multiple vendors, and I would hate to have to trash nice custom cherry cabinets because the fridge died. Any thoughts from the community?

Any other thoughts we should be considering at this point in the process? After two major remodels with our builder prior to this, we have a very good working relationship so we are in a good position there. In fact, we will be his entry in the Parade of Homes this year (my wife and I are house geeks and are really stoked about this opportunity). Our cabinet provider is a local custom shop that also sells (and matches custom work to) a full line of prebuilt cabinet lines they carry. Neither us nor our builder have worked with this vendor before, but initial meetings have been very positive. The kitchen is going to be big and open to the great room, breakfast nook and dining room.

I will continue to post here as we finalize the designs and the choices. Thanks in advance for your feedback and support as we go though this process! We have been through an ordeal in the last year, but this new kitchen is one of the brightest of the silver linings so we are totally focused on it.