The Girls' Mom Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 We have to pick out our appliances for our new kitchen :D I've never purchased some of these things new before, so I would like input. What have you had and loved? We will need: A dishwasher (that will be used about 2x a day) A gas cooktop A gas wall oven A side by side refrigerator. OR if you love your french door frige, tell me why. A new dryer. (nothing fancy here) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beth in OH Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 My dishwasher tip: Think about how you load your dishes. You will have to choose between silverware on the door vs. inside the bottom rack. On the door gives you more interior space, but it makes me crazy. When the door is open and the bottom rack is pulled out, you can't load silverware. I tend to fill the dishwasher in whatever order the dirty dishes are in, so I switch between dishes and silverware. If you pile silverware and put it all in at the same time, the door thing probably won't bother you ;). Refrigerator tips: Stainless vs. other--Stainless fingerprints and dents. If this is the route you want to go (it does look nice!), ask a salesperson to address these issues with the different models. Love having a bottom freezer! As for doors, consider the space where it will go. If you have wide open space in front of the fridge, I think single door on top with a pull-out bottom drawer equipped with various levels of sliding shelves is great. If your fridge opens into a doorway, our you have a tight space in front of it, French doors on top might be better. Also consider the hinge direction if you have to work around any obstructions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegasus Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Last year, we replaced a very old dishwasher with a highly recommended Bosch model. It is now a deep regret. We routinely wish we still had our old one, even with its broken tines and quirks (we had to stay nearby and manually open the soap dispenser when the cycle reached that point). We now have to run the Bosch through 2 or 3 cycles to get the dishes clean. It sometimes says it is done with the cycle when clearly it is still in mid-cycle. The soap dispenser frequently fails to open. Randomly, it fails to drain completely and we have to bail dirty soapy water from the bottom of the tub. The reviews were great on this model. The only good thing about it over our old one is that it is much quieter. I wish you better luck with your new appliances! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammyla Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 I don't love the freezer on the bottom; bending down is a pain in the back. We went with a side by side...and I love it. Check how low the dishwasher door is when it's opened. Bending is a pain. Measure all of your spaces. Appliance sizes vary a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisa in Jax Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 I love my Kitchen Aid French door fridge, but I wouldn't love it it if I didn't have an extra freezer, too, b/c I'm tall, and having only the "bottom" freezer would make me nuts. I'm not a fan of side-by-side refrigerators, so I'm no help there. ;-) I agree with Pegasus. I'm not a fan of high-high end dishwashers. The previous owners installed an Asko dw. I really disliked it b/c it was unreliable, and was really expensive to repair. Once it finally died, I was glad to replace it with a middle-of-the-road dw. We now have a Whirlpool "Quiet Partner" dw, which I like much better than the more expensive Asko. I like having the silverware rack in the door, but as Beth said, it works best if you load all of the silverware at once. Our has room to put the silverware rack on the side of the bottom rack (instead of on the door), so you can do it whichever way works best for you. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Girls' Mom Posted July 8, 2012 Author Share Posted July 8, 2012 Measure all of your spaces. Appliance sizes vary a lot. We are building, so we can adjust accordingly to some extent. Keep your thoughts coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soror Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 I hate my side by side refrigerator. When this one dies I'll be going w/ french door or the old fashion freezer up top (depending on budget and energy ). I have a Whirlpool dishwasher that works very well for me but it is nothing fancy. I hardly rinse things if I do at all and use homemade detergent and things are so much cleaner than the old one I have. It is fairly rare that something doesn't come clean ie I baked bread and it is crusted on the side of the pan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samiam Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Delay start is my favorite feature of all time on a dishwasher. Since newer houses these days tend to have the kitchen and family room all right next to each other as one big open space, I hate having to turn up the TV to hear over the dishwasher...especially since it's usually later at night and my children are in bed. Maybe we've just had louder dishwashers, I dunno....but I don't think any are as truly quiet as they say they are. Anyhoo, with the Delay start, you can load but then set the timer so it runs 2-4 hours later. This is how I do it....load it during the evening after dinner, during the whole dinner clean up timeframe or sometimes later at night, 10-ish....but then that is when I want to sit down and watch some junk TV by myself, don't want to listen to the dishwasher...so set the timer and it runs once I've gone to bed. Plus it's nice if a stray glass ends up being used after I've loaded..I can still add it in before it runs. I've had houses where we did not have that feature, and I can't tell you how many times I forgot to run the dishwasher cuz I went to bed without remembering to start it :(. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjzimmer1 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 I was planning on buying the biggest french door model available because everywhere I read people loved their french door fridges. Then I went to see one in person. The produce drawers are microscopic compared to what I had in my side by side (I could put over a 1/2 bushel in each of the drawers). Since we eat lots of produce as well as buy in large quantities to save money, having ample storage was imperative. I also took some of my larger dishes that I regularly store in the fridge and tried to see how they would fit. After spending a couple of hours comparing the 31 cubit french door and the 31 cubit side by side, we determined we were able to store a whole more in the side by side. So we bought the Whirlpool side by side. It love it. I holds so much. My previous fridge was a 25 cubit Whirlpool side by side and I took one of the door shelves from my old fridge and added it to the new so I have 5 shelves in the door. I can now hold almost all my condiments and milk (due to allergies and picky kids we have 4-5 kinds of milk on hand at any one time) in the door which frees up all the shelves for food. The produce drawers on the new one are even bigger than the old one. The small drawer holds about 2/3 a bushel and the large drawer holds about 3/4. For me this is huge because I bought 3 1/2 bushels of peaches just before I went on vacation for a week since that was only time I could get them and since my fridge is so big I could load up all the peaches and hold them till I got back so I can freeze them for the winter. We also kept our old fridge so for the first time ever we actually have enough fridge space for everything so I don't have to go to the grocery store every week. As far as other things go. I don't have or even want gas so I can't help you with those. The dishwasher, the biggest help to me was the person who suggested I take my dishes and try them out. The interior design is very different from one brand to another and many of my bigger dishes didn't fit in certain brands of dishwashers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaAkins Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 We have to pick out our appliances for our new kitchen :D I've never purchased some of these things new before, so I would like input. What have you had and loved? We will need: A dishwasher (that will be used about 2x a day) A gas cooktop A gas wall oven A side by side refrigerator. OR if you love your french door frige, tell me why. A new dryer. (nothing fancy here) The new dishwashers are mostly "tall tub" style, which I love! There's a lot more room inside and I find that we're able to run ours once per day versus twice per day (when we had our old dishwasher). I would definitely get a french door fridge. We just got one in December and it's fabulous (we have an LG brand). I find the space to be much more "usable" than with an old freezer on top/fridge on bottom or a side-by-side. I have no need for the type with the water in the door, etc, so we got a more basic model. I figured the less "gadgets" on it, the less chance there is of something breaking! Besides, we have good tap water here, so I don't need an additional filter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 My dishwasher tip: Think about how you load your dishes. You will have to choose between silverware on the door vs. inside the bottom rack. On the door gives you more interior space, but it makes me crazy. When the door is open and the bottom rack is pulled out, you can't load silverware. I tend to fill the dishwasher in whatever order the dirty dishes are in, so I switch between dishes and silverware. If you pile silverware and put it all in at the same time, the door thing probably won't bother you ;). My dishwasher is like this, but the silverware baskets still fit on the bottom rack if you prefer. I usually just put the silverware baskets on the counter to load and put them in the door just before I run the dishwasher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnificent_baby Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 I love my KitchenAid dishwasher. It is the second one we've owned (first one left there when we moved). I love the control lock feature. The controls are flush with the dishwasher and get bumped very easy. Stainless steel interior with adjustable racks. We spent about $700, but very worth it for us, as we use it 1 to 2 times/day and it's huge inside. I really, really dislike my gas cooktop. It is a light gray color and looks filthy no matter how hard I scrub, which requires taking several pieces off to clean, several times a week. We plan to replace with a flat top electric someday. I love cooking with gas, but the maintenance of our particular range is not worth it to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizzyBee Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 We've had a Bosch dishwasher for about 5 years now and we still love it. We got the cheapest one, so it's not fancy at all, but it's quiet and it does a good job cleaning the dishes. We have a Whirlpool Gold side by side fridge. I think it's 26 cubic ft. It has 3 drawers and 3 shelves, so sometimes we have to use a drawer for food, but it works out okay. We eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, so sometimes we do have all 3 drawers filled with produce. It has lots of space on the door for condiments, etc. The freezer side is wide enough to fit a frozen pizza laying down. We originally planned to buy a french door fridge with the freezer on the bottom, but changed our minds when we looked at them in the store. They are not as spacious inside as they look from the outside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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