A House By The Park

I’ll have a more complete post on this later, but the live construction cam is now live. The house is coming down! Click here for the latest image (the image will update every minute).

It’s going quick…

As design stage neared completion, it was time to turn my attention toward the construction stage of the project. My architects at Build LLC specialize in what is called “Design/Build”, which is exactly as it sounds: designing the house and then building the house. Design/Build proponents will tell you this is the most efficient and cost-effective way to build a new house because it centers all responsibility in one place and eliminates many arguments, inefficiencies, and other overhead associated with using a separate traditional architect and general contractor. Both traditional architects and general contractors, however, will tell you that this back-and-forth between architects and contractors is what gets you the best quality house possible. Their argument is that the architect keeps the G.C. honest and the G.C. keeps the architect honest… all on your behalf. For instance, if an architect specifies a certain material and the G.C. tries to sub in something inferior, the architect will point it out and make sure it is remedied. Conversely, if an architect specs a material that is 5x as expensive as something just as good, the G.C. will alert you to this and ask if you’d like to use the more cost-effective stuff.

Both arguments make sense to me and I’m sure there is merit to each. Addtionally, I can see either situation working out very well or very poorly. A great Design/Build firm will provide a great all-around experience without the need for checks and balances whereas a crappy one will deliver you a poorly designed poorly constructed house. Conversely, a good architect/G.C. combo will give you a great finished product with minimal friction, but if either the architect or G.C. is a weak link, the entire project can turn out poorly.

One thing that doesn’t seem debatable, however, is price. The Design/Build process would seem to produce a less expensive experience in most cases, but as my attorney pointed out to me, it also involves more risk. The reason for this is that in a typical Design/Build arrangement, you never sign a G.C. contract at all. Instead, you sign what is called a C.M. (construction management) contract. This type of contract essentially just specifies the fee you’ll be paying your construction manager and the fact that they will be “advising” you throughout the process. Now… “advising” includes a lot of the things a G.C. would do like coordinating subcontractors, getting bids, supervising the site, etc but the two key things it doesn’t provide are blanket liability for the project or cost guarantees.

Liability

In a G.C. contract, if something bad happens during construction, the G.C. is ultimately responsible for it. If it’s a problem caused by a subcontractor (more common than not), the G.C. will attempt to assign blame and remediation to that subcontractor, but in the event it cannot be assigned for some reason, the G.C. assumes it. This is a valuable service, in my opinion. It’s nice to know that no matter what happens on site, you’ll never even have to hear about it.

In a C.M. contract, the construction manager will also attempt to assign blame and remediation to subcontractors when appropriate, but if that fails, it’s on you, the client. One of the reasons it’s cheaper to use a C.M. than a G.C. is that the liability insurance isn’t there, but the downside is more risk for you so you need to get cool with that if you’re going the C.M. route.

Cost Guarantees

There are three ways a G.C. can bid your project: Fixed bid, cost plus, and cost plus with gmax. Fixed bid is just as it sounds: a G.C. tells you he or she will build your house for X dollars and that is exactly the amount you pay. If it’s tougher to build than expected, the G.C.’s margins suffer and if it’s easier, their margins increase. A cost plus contract basically says you will pay whatever the house ends up costing to build, in time and materials, plus a fixed fee to your G.C. (either a flat fee or a percentage of the cost of construction). A cost plus with gmax is the same as a cost plus except the G.C. gives you a maximum amount you will be on the hook for no matter what happens.

While the certainty of a fixed bid contract seems nice, I have two problems with it. Firstly, since the G.C. needs to make sure the project is profitable for them, they are highly incented to pad the number, almost guaranteeing you are paying more than you should, unless things go terribly wrong… at which point they eat it and aren’t going to be happy anyway. Secondly, change orders inevitably come up and I imagine this can cause arguments between clients and G.C.s as to whether or not the fixed bid should be affected by the change.

The cost plus method seems the riskiest but also has the potential to save you a lot of money if things go well. The cost plus with gmax improves this option by at least giving you a ceiling you know you’ll never go over. Although again, fighting over changes can surely result in disputes here.

My situation

Anyway, my attorney advised me to look into going the G.C. route because he feels more comfortable with the liability protection they provide. Although I had planned on using Build for both designing and building, I agreed with my attorney’s concerns and met with a couple of reputable G.C.s in Seattle to see what they could do for me.

It is important to note that I did not talk to any one-man shops or otherwise unestablished firms. I’m sure I could have gotten plenty of low-ball, unrealistic bids if I did. Instead, I picked one G.C. based on what I knew about their reputation and another G.C. based on some great work I had seen from them. My experience speaking with each firm was different.

When I called the first firm and inquired about them building my house, I ended up spending an hour or so on the phone with one of the principals and we got along great. He was a very knowledgeable guy and explained to me in great detail the benefits of going the G.C. route and what his firm offered. By the end of the phone call, I told him I’d love an estimate at which point he asked me to send the plans over. I emailed the plans over a day or so later and his response surprised me a little. He essentially said that the plans were “so complete” that it would actually make the project harder to estimate. I guess Build does such a thorough job spec’ing everything out that it requires more of a G.C.’s time to examine than if it were just a sketch. Given this, he asked me if a quick ballpark bid would suffice for now and if the fit felt right, they would do a deep dive. Absolutely I said, not wanting to waste anyone’s time. Two full weeks later, I got a bid from them and it was shocking. They submitted a “low end” (best case) number and a “high end” (worst case) number.

The low-end number was 86% higher for the total project cost than Build’s! And the high-end number was 155% higher!

I’m not just saying their fee was higher. The entire project, if contracted through them, would cost between 86% and 155% more. I’m not sure any amount of liability protection is worth that. It’s simply an obscene amount of money. So what accounted for all of the extra costs? A lot of stuff, including a higher fee and a bucket called “General Conditions” that essentially includes a construction management fee on top of the standard G.C. fee. This G.C. pitches their “fee” as being 12%, but it’s really a bullshit number. If you add in the fee they charge for their project manager and superintendent, it’s more like 20%. This is fairly standard practice, so I’m not implying any dishonesty here. I’m just saying, when you’re pricing a project, you need to really dig into the numbers and find out what you’re paying for. As a point of comparison, Build’s proposed C.M. fee would be a flat charge and it would amount to approximately 11% of the cost of construction, pre-tax, pre-contingency.

With this sort of cost differential, there is no way I could ever justify using this G.C. With no hard feelings of course, I sent an email to the principal informing them how much higher their bid was and that as a result, I could not justify a relationship with them. That’s when things started to get a little weird. The principal asked me to keep their bid confidential, and I told him that I planned on talking about the bid on my blog but that of course I wasn’t planning on mentioning his firm’s name because I’m not trying to make anyone look bad. I thought that would be the end of the discussion but he then felt the need to clarify that he wasn’t afraid of looking bad but rather that he doesn’t want his competitors learning about the way his firm bids and that “ethically” he would never ask for information on his competitors either.

What?

I asked him what could possibly be unethical about inquiring about your competitors and why was he so concerned with obscuring his business practices? I told him that one of the things that attracted me to Build in the first place was their transparency, honesty, and desire to remove the mystery from the profession. He told me his was decidedly unimpressed with that and wished me good luck on my project. Very strange… and very much NOT a good fit for me, obviously.

The second G.C. firm I met with was a smaller shop (about 40 people) whose work had impressed me and seemed to build a lot of great modern homes in the Seattle area. The firm is Dyna Contracting and I’m mentioning their name because they’re just as open about their practices as Build and they said they didn’t mind being mentioned even though I didn’t end up moving forward with them. In other words, they are my type of guys.

My initial meeting with Dyna went great and when I walked out — without even seeing an estimate yet — I knew this was a firm I would be happy to work with. They are into modern architecture, their overhead is smaller than some of the bigger firms, and they strike me as the type of people that are more interested in working on cool projects and providing value than capturing every potential dollar that could hit the top line. They also seem like great “value engineers”, meaning they are vigilant about looking for cost savings wherever possible in order to reduce your projects costs and thus make you a happier client.

While the first G.C. firm took two full weeks to get me a rough estimate that went into no detail, Dyna produced a detailed breakdown of every single cost anticipated in the project, right down to the door hardware and cabinet pulls. There were pages and pages of details about everything, including an entire section on “qualifications” spelling out things like “existing downspout locations assumed to be adequate”. Like the first G.C., they commented on the completeness of Build’s drawings and even said they were among the most complete they’d ever seen. Go Andrew!

What Dyna produced exceeded my expectations as far as completeness goes, and it took them only a few days to turn around. Amazing.

At the end of the day, however, it’s the bottom line that matters most, and I had to stack Dyna’s numbers up against Build’s. Dyna came in a very respectable and reasonable 16% higher, while of course being much lower than the other G.C. Most of the additional cost was in a higher fee and once again a higher “General Conditions” bucket that included a separate project management fee. Again, this appears typical in the industry so it’s not a big deal, but you just have to add it to the equation.

The decision

At the end of the day, my decision came down to whether or not liability protection was worth an extra 16% to me. Since neither Build’s nor Dyna’s estimates were fixed cost, I risked going over on either number, but I assigned a high honesty score to each, so I assumed an equal chance of overage with either route. This point should not be underestimated. An estimate is just an estimate and if you don’t trust the estimator, the estimate isn’t worth much. Through my many months of working with Build, they’ve done nothing but increase my trust in them and when I called their references to ask how well they stay on budget, they got glowing reviews. Although I hadn’t had any experience working with Dyna yet, they just felt very honest to me (and I tested them a bit) and I’m sure if I called their past clients, that hunch would be validated as well.

In the end, my decision was to stick with Build, mainly because they have given me no reason not to. I realize not hiring a traditional G.C. is a bit of a leap of faith, but the past several months have given me the faith I need to take that leap, and hopefully save some moey in the process. I am convinced that the Design/Build process Build goes through indeed saves money and produces great results. I accept that if my project goes off the rails in a way their projects never have in the past, I am a bit more exposed than I would be under a normal G.C. relationship, but at the same time, I’ve heard of plenty traditional architect/G.C. relationships that get out of hand as well.

In the end, you need to trust the people who have given you reason to trust them, and Build has given me that in spades over the last year. That said, if you’re looking for a great G.C. in the Seattle area, I would start your quest with Dyna… and of course if you’re looking for a Design/Build firm to design, build, or remodel something, you know how I feel about Build.

Endnotes

1. Wow, 2400 words. That was a long post.
2. We may end up using Dyna as a vendor for some major elements of the project, including plumbing, electrical, and other things.
3. Big ups to both G.C. firms for not low-balling and not responding to my declining of their services by lowering their own bids to unrealistic levels.
4. My sample size of G.C.s was very small. I do not mean this as any sort of referendum on G.C.s as a whole, although as mentioned above, I do believe that the Design/Build process — although requiring more risk — generally results in lower costs in the end. We’ll see if this proves true. This is just the sort of thing this blog is for!

I finally closed my refinancing a few days ago and am happy to have that long chapter behind me. The process started way back in February and because of some ridiculousness by Countrywide and then several more hoops to jump through at Wells Fargo, it didn’t end until now.

At least I ended up with a 4.875% rate, which I couldn’t be happier about, especially considering rates have risen substantially since I locked.

I remain aghast, however, with how much waste and financial nickel-and-diming there is in the mortgage industry. All I did was change the rate of my existing mortgage with the same bank and pay the principal down a bit. That should have been achievable with a simple phone call, but instead took months of back-and-forth, credit checks, paperwork, and all the other trimmings of a full mortgage application. Not only does Wells Fargo get to keep my business but they also make money on all the fees, including escrow which shouldn’t even be necessary since it’s the same bank my existing mortgage was with. Now I know why Wells Fargo owns their own escrow company. I think it sucks that banks can do “mortgage modifications” for people in a few minutes over the phone but refinancings take forever and require full paperwork.

Anyway, the final hurdle is now cleared. Deconstruction is scheduled for early July.

Almost 5 months after applying for building and demolition permits, the City of Seattle finally granted me my documents last week. With barely any permit applications going through the City these days, one would think things would have gone quicker, but in reality, I feel like the lack of permit flow caused more city scrutiny in the end. The main issue that dragged things out was something I wrote about a little while ago: indemnification.

In short, since part of my property is in an “environmentally sensitive area” (i.e. near a cliff) the City insisted that I sign a covenant running with the land that did many things I felt were overreaching and unnecessary. I understand why the City’s standard procedure is to ask for this (and most people accept it as is) but it contained two particular things that my attorney, Patrick Moran, was thankfully able to negotiate out:

• A clause stating that if anyone sued the City for anything relating to the issuance of my permits, I had to indemnify them and pay for all legal fees, judgements, etc.
• A clause stating that this covenant ran with the land and if I ever sold the property, the new owners would also be burdened by it.

The first clause was reduced such that the indemnification only covers actual damages caused by construction. This means that if a neighbor decides to sue the City because they don’t like the look of my house, I’m not on the hook to defend anybody or pay anything. The second clause was modified such that the indemnification ends if and when the property is sold. This is key in preserving value, as I would flinch if I was buying a property which transferred such indemnification to me.

A lot more language was clarified as well, and I feel like the $1049.50 I owe my attorney in fees has been well worth it.

During these final stages of preparing for construction, I’ve also completed a few more tasks and spent a little more money:

• We had the asbestos abated for $2,335.64 by Partners Construction, Inc.
• Some additional structural engineering work from Swenson Say Faget was completed for $2,192.29.
• Some additional geotech work was required by the City and performed by Icicle Creek Engineers for $600.
• The additional City of Seattle fee to complete the permitting process was $3,450.75 (bringing the total permit fee to $8,911.50).
• Printing fees of $172.91 for some additional drawing sets.

So with that, we’re almost all set to build. I’m still waiting for my refinance to close, but after that it’s all systems go. Unfortunately, the place that is going to deconstruct and recycle most of the existing house is a little booked up right now so we may be looking at July.

It’s also interesting to note that the official amount of investment it took to get to the point of breaking ground has been exactly $78,543.85.

During the few months my house has been waiting for permits (which I should finally get this coming week! woohoo!), I’ve been exploring different refinancing options to take advantage of how low 30-year fixed mortgage rates are right now. The process has been anything but straightforward and it’s starting to get a bit infuriating.

I am currently holding a 5/1 ARM at 5.75% and a home equity line of credit indexed to prime-minus-0.25% with a floor of 4.22%. Since prime is currently 3.25%, the line is currently floored. The ARM is for the maximum amount allowed short of a jumbo.

The process began for me back in mid-February when I happened to notice Countrywide advertising 30-year fixed jumbos at 6%. I hadn’t seen jumbos below 7% since the sub-prime crisis began, so I got the ball rolling. Everything seemed great for the first few weeks and my appraisal came in at exactly what I paid for the house, so I thought I was home free. Then the trouble began. Countrywide underwriting began asking for all sorts of additional documents, which I ended up providing eventually because they said that was all they needed to close. Then, a whole two months into the process, they wanted me to go to my HR department and provide written compensation guarantees using language my HR department was not comfortable with (and neither was I, to be frank).

All this for someone who has perfect credit, a comfortable salary, plenty of equity in his property, and the ability to pay off the entire house tomorrow if necessary. At this point, I felt something strange was afoot at Countrywide underwriting, so I called up my current lender, Wells Fargo, to see what their best deal was.

My previous agent at Wells told me they didn’t have any great jumbos available, but that they could refinance my first mortgage into a 30-year fixed at 4.875% and keep my HELOC as is. Not bad at all. I spent the evening creating a spreadsheet comparing cash flows between the split option and the jumbo option and sent it to my Wells agent in advance of our meeting the next day.

To my surprise, my agent tried to forward my email and spreadsheet to a friend in his office with a snarky note attached to it. To his surprise, he accidentally hit “reply” instead of “forward” and it came to me. I called him immediately to cancel our meeting and our financial relationship.

Always remember the golden rule of e-mail: If you aren’t comfortable with the entire world seeing an e-mail you’re writing, then don’t write it. Or at least don’t be a jackass and send it directly to the person you’d least like to see it.

Anyway, I had nothing against Wells Fargo as an institution, so I called another agent in Seattle and got the ball rolling on the split option refi. Everything was hunky dory until the appraisal came through underneath what I paid for the house. I would understand this if I bought at the peak or if I didn’t get the place off-market for under even the tax assessed value, but something didn’t smell right. I looked at the appraisal and the person got some material things wrong, including square footage and using comps that weren’t even in my neighborhood!

So now it appears I have to dispute the appraisal.

Here’s what makes no sense at all to me though: Since the jumbo limit in my area has gone down about $60k, I am willingly paying $60k to decrease the size of this loan down to the new limit. Therefore, I am owing my bank less money. Therefore, even if the property was appraised at one dollar, the bank would be better off carrying my new loan than my old one, from a risk standpoint! There shouldn’t even be a loan approval process at all in this case!

What makes me even more mad is that I met one of my neighbors yesterday who was in the same situation with ING, and he said he spent literally 5 minutes on the phone with ING and did a “mortgage modification” into a 30-year fixed with no paperwork, no escrow, no appraisal, etc. Why I can’t do something like this with Wells, I have no idea.

Permits are coming this week, so having this issue outstanding for three months now is starting to really make me nervous.

Over the past several months, I’ve built up a pretty decent list of home-design related RSS feeds. If you’re interested in keeping up on the latest home design trends, appliance technology, and related issues, add the below feeds to your Google Reader subscriptions. The best way I’ve found to clip things I like is to use Tumblr. I basically just set up a Tumblr blog at http://tumblelog.ahousebythepark.com where everything is saved, and there, my architects can keep tabs on things I’m looking at.

• 360 Winnett Ave.
• Appliancist
• Contemporist
• Hill House
• Home Design Find
• DesignCrave
• Freshome
• Kitchen Sync
• Modern Residential Design
• Momoy
• The Cool Hunter – Architecture
• The Cool Hunter – House
• Trendir

Anybody have any other great feeds to add to the list?

While waiting patiently for the construction permits to get issued, I’ve been thinking really hard about the ramifications of using natural stained wood on heavily exposed areas of my house. It’s been a concern of mine from the very beginning, but only after seeing in person what happens to Brazilian Ipe after a year in the sun and rain have I started to really question whether or not I want so much exposed wood on the outside of my house. Ipe is such a dense wood that you aren’t even supposed to stain it, but in order to keep it from silvering, you pretty much need to oil it down every year. Considering that part of this wood will be inside and part will be outside, I’m just not convinced I can maintain anything close to a uniform, “newish” appearance no matter what I do (and I don’t want to oil or stain a good portion of the house every year).

This concern seems to fly in the face of a lot of modern architecture lately, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Take a look at some really nice wood-heavy modern designs from the last few years:

Build LLC

PB Elemental

Scott West

SkB Architects

Unknown

While all of these houses look spectacular, I just can’t help but wonder what they will look like in 5 or 10 years, especially in a climate like Seattle that gets quite a wide range of weather. From what I can tell, it’s the sun more than the water which makes wood fade or go silver, so maybe in that sense, Seattle isn’t so bad.

Because of my concerns, I’ve been exploring alternatives including the following:

1. Using another wood like mahogany or cedar, which may be easier to stain when it starts to fade
2. Painting the wood from the get-go, or at least being ready to paint it if and when its appearance goes downhill
3. Using a synthetic wood paneling system which should hold up indefinitely to the elements
4. Using a plastic-aluminum cladding system and tucking a bit of wood accenting in sheltered areas of it

If anyone has any experience that could be helpful, I’d love to hear it. Once again, here is the mostly-final design we’re talking about:

It’s been about two months since plans were submitted to the City of Seattle and we’re finally nearing approval. The Department of Planning and Development has really been scrutinizing the hell out of everything, probably because the amount of applications flowing through right now are minimal. The fine folks at Build have dutifully made all of the “clarifications” and modifications the city has requested and we’re entering the home stretch.

As part of the extra scrutiny, we had to do a little more geotech reporting at a cost of $350 and structural engineering at a cost of $2,642.50.

More troubling, however, is a contract the city wants me to sign not only absolving them of any liability related to damage that may occur to my property (because it is near an “environmentally sensitive” zone) but actually indemnifying them against claims made by others for issuing me a permit.

Initially, even the first clause scared me but I’ve been advised that they are still culpable for negligence. So for instance, if they run a sewer line such that it dumps 10,000 gallons of water right onto my property causing the entire cliff to collapse, I can still seek damages. We may need to clarify language around this though.

The second clause is more concerning though. It essentially says that even if a neighbor sues the city for issuing me a permit, I must pay to defend the city and also pay any judgements or penalties against the city, if there are any. That seems extremely onerous to me, especially since I have no control over what sorts of crazies might want to sue the city. At least when I indemnified the family who sold me the house, it was for a very specific situation that I knew had a 99.9% chance of not mattering… not to mention, I quickly nullified my liability by having the only potential litigious party sign a litigation waiver.

Because of this latest issue, I’ve decided to seek the advice of a real estate attorney, recommended to me by a friend. It’s probably a good time to get to know a good real estate attorney anyway, since there will be plenty of contracts to execute moving forward. Hopefully, I’ll have an update on the situation soon.

It took a well-placed comment from The JimRay™ in my last post, but induction cooking is beginning to look very interesting to me.

Check out this illustrative image from GE showing ice cubes sitting calmly on one side of an induction burner and a half-pot of boiling water on the other:

You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to set ice cubes randomly on a burner.

Anyway, induction cooking is more than just an impressive technology for party tricks. It heats pots faster than even gas and expends less energy doing so… all via the power of magnetic force. The chief downside appears to be that you need to use iron or steel cookware, which isn’t a big deal to me since I only own a few pots and all are magnetic. The other downside is that I haven’t found a model which includes any sort of built-in griddle, which kind of sucks.

For more information on induction cooking, check out GE’s Induction Cooking site. It looks like you can get models ranging from about $1000 to several thousand, depending on what you’re looking for.

Anyone have any experience with induction cooking? Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

While the house plans are in for approval, I’ve been checking out appliances — both online and in-person — looking for the right dishwasher, fridge, washer, dryer, and oven/range.

The quality gap between appliance websites is simply astounding to me. It’s 2009… you’d think everyone would know how to do a “help me select my appliance” feature by now. The worst I found was ironically the company whose brand I had already decided on: Bosch. Bosch makes TWENTY models of dishwashers and the process of distinguishing between all of them is maddening. None of the features are explained in a convenient manner, none of the sub-brands are clearly differentiated, and worst of all their “product comparison tool” only lets you select three models at a time. To compare each model against every other would require 1140 different combination trials. Go ahead, try it… it’s embarrassingly bad.

On the other side of the spectrum is Samsung. Ironic as well, since their cell phone interfaces are so second rate. Where Bosch fails in leading me towards a happy, confident purchase, Samsung excels. Samsung’s washer selector lets me pick features one by one and removes models that don’t fit the criteria on the fly. It also has some nice Flash demos demonstrating some of the features that might need explaining. By the time I was done checking off features, I was down to one model. That is how it’s done, BOSCH!

I haven’t made any final decisions yet, but here’s what I’m leaning towards (if you have experience with any of these brands or others, please let me know in the comments):

Dishwasher: Bosch

Despite the awful website, Bosch seems to have a great reputation with regard to dishwashers. Multiple people, including Build, have recommended them personally to me so I am loath to go against that sort of word-of-mouth claqueury. It’s the one appliance that a lot of people seem to agree on: Bosch makes the best dishwashers. That said, thanks to their website, I have no idea which model to choose. My only requirements are integrated cabinet face and the adjustable upper rack option. Depending on the model, it should cost anywhere from $800 to $1600.

Refrigerator: GE Profile

There are tons of good refrigerators out there, but so far I’ve only found one that has the top two features I’m looking for: French doors with the freezer on the bottom and an external water/ice dispenser. French doors seem to be in these days, but external water/ice dispensers are harder and harder to find. Many models just do the water-only dispenser on the inside now apparently. Boooooooooo. External seems a lot more convenient.

The GE PFSS6PKXSS seems to fit the bill perfectly and has dope LED lights on the inside as well, which is just awesome. It’s $2699 retail, but since I work at msnbc.com, my GE employee discount should knock a good portion off of that. Not bad considering some of the other fridges I looked at were twice that amount.

Washer/Dryer: Samsung

I didn’t even know Samsung made washers or dryers. They do and they are awesome, according to Consumer Reports and other sources. Among the more novel features is something called “SilverCare” which embeds microscopic silver particles in your clothing to keep the stank away. Watch this video for the entertaining details of how Consumer Reports performed the test.

The kicker, however, is something called VRT. It’s a technology that Samsung pioneered which dramatically reduces the vibration of and noise of the washer and dryer during spin cycles. According to everyone who has tried it, it’s a no-brainer if your washer/dryer is not on a concrete floor. Since we’re putting ours upstairs right next to the master bedroom, this seems like a slam dunk.

The other set that looked awesome is the Electrolux. Honestly, they look even better than the Samsungs but I couldn’t find a single review online and Consumer Reports hasn’t tested them yet. They are priced similarly as the Samsung set (about $1500 per piece), so at that price, I feel much better buying something that’s been thoroughly tested and reviewed.

Oven/Range: Probably GE Monogram or Wolf

This is the appliance I’m least sure about right now. I do know I’ll be getting a dual-fuel 36-inch wide unit, but no one model has stood out yet. The Wolfs are nice, but $8500 for a range seems ridiculous, considering how often I failover to the microwave. Currently, I’m leaning towards the 36 inch GE Monogram Dual Fuel Oven/Range with 4 burners and a griddle. It’s more like $5500 and hopefully the discount will knock a substantial amount off of that as well.

So that’s where I’m at on appliances so far. If anyone has any advice or positive/negative reviews for certain brands or models, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

UPDATE (8/8/2010): I just published this new post describing the final appliance package.