Which choice did you make and are you happy with it?

-Rob
www.ahomefromscratch.com

Nice! Thanks for your response. We have a Thermador built-in now (www.akitchenremodel.com) and are generally pleased with it but want to move to a 42" hence the consideration for KA and related brands.

Love your kitchen and the wall of cabinets is beautiful.

Question for you about your recessed lighting between the island and cabinets - is one row of them at the edge of your counters and the other row centered in the aisle? Are they all 6", or 5"?

The lights are all 3-3/4"; Lightolier 2000LV. I like the smaller aperture of the recessed cans, but to be honest these were chosen by our architect and not us. This was one of those things where I figured a recessed can was a recessed can and I didn't need to do the research myself. In retrospect, if I were choosing, I'd go with something the same size, but a can that (a) didn't have an MR-16 lightbulb -- they are a pain in the @(# to change, and (b) was a wider floodlight so the pool of light spread out more. But I'm really nitpicking when I say this. One more factor -- these are halogen. I'm kinda nuts about wanting halogen lights rather than LED.

You're seeing correctly; one set of cans is centered in the aisle. The row of lights that's at the edge of the counters was something I added during the renovation because I'm very nuts about lighting. I like a kitchen where you don't have to turn on the under-counter lights in order to cook at night. To me, adding those cans made a huge difference, but your mileage may vary. I'm sure some people would be perfectly content with just the aisle lights -- perhaps particularly if they had a wider flood angle.

We considered the Thermador built-in as well. As I recall it didn't have the capability to have split shelves (so... less flexible interior), and also had the compressor on the bottom, so it was high, like the Liebherr. There was something else regarding the door shelves that we didn't like, as I recall... perhaps they weren't adjustable, either, or the opaque bottom... but it's a well-reviewed fridge, to be sure. These choices are so personal!

@nancy trainer- I’m considering the kitchen aid built in. How has yours been all these years? Any repairs? Do you recommend?

It's been quiet and reliable, no repairs at all. Yes, I'd definitely recommend it, though (as you can see) it isn't exactly the most stylish fridge. On the other hand, it's been a workhorse and we get the style in our kitchen from our (blue) range. :)

Why do you think it’s not stylish?

Oh, well, it's not truly built in and so it sticks out a bit into the kitchen, plus having the compressor on top makes that panel much more noticeable.

We have had our Liebherr for about ten years now, and it is still completely silent. I am only 5’4”, but I have never had any problems with the height. We bought it because we needed a fridge with finished sides, which didn’t give us many options at the time.

Nancy -- I came across a post you made years ago about movable "chandelier" track lighting. I was wondering if I could DM you to ask some questions?

Ybrik,

I don't know how to give you personal information in this public forum without revealing it to everyone on Houzz (which I don't want to do). Happy to answer any question you may have but I'm not sure how to do that privately.