24'' Bluestar range would be the MUCH better choice.

Hi hollysprings, while it would be nice to own a bluestar range, my guess is that it would exceed the cost of our current combo of cooktop/wall oven combined. Also, for this remodel, we'd really like to try a cooktop, I guess more for aesthetics than anything else. Have you had bad experience with the choices we were looking at? Thanks!

There are a lot of cooktops and ovens that don't pair well together. Generally, manufacturers make duos that take each other's quirks into account, but it can be a bear fitting mismatched ones. For that reason, the Bertazzoni pair might be your best bet. Still, make sure they can be installed together. The other option is to put the oven in a different location from the cooktop and get what you want if they can't be paired.

We have a small home with a space challenged kitchen and considered a separate stove top and oven. But when we discovered that BlueStar made a cute little 24 inch range we got one and are totally pleased with it.

An integrated freestanding stove/oven enjoys the cost savings of a single gas hookup, no cabinet building, and much simpler installation. I'm not really certain you would save that much money cobbling together two appliances.

Yes, four grand was a lot of money, but cooking on the BS rendered the cost moot. : )

Are you stacking them or will the oven be offset from the cooktop (not underneath it?

The gas cooktops you mentioned are my favorites; also this Bertzzoni 4-burner cooktop - http://us.bertazzoni.com/professional-series/hobs/24-cooktop-4-burner - similar layout as the Verona but the grates look more stable.

Ovens - the Smeg units worth considering. I love my Fagor 24" oven with the side-hinged door, but the company is now in bankruptcy so I can't recommend buying one (somehow, they have a new model on their website with revamped electronic controls). Gaggenau also with side hinged doors the best, but ridiculously overpriced IMO (their cooktops are much more reasonable - there was one where I used to live - but don't like the design as much as the others).

plllog, that's a good point about the two units needing to fit well in the same cabinet space. Does anyone know which one is typically installed first, cooktop or oven?

lee676, I did look at some Smeg oven units and they looked really nice, but it was still too pricey for us.

Tinyhomebuilder, thanks for the heads up on the bluestar range and for giving us a hint of the price, all the websites we looked at said to call for price =) Whle I know it makes more sense to get a good range unit rather than spreading out the cost over what might be considered lesser cooktop/oven units, In our case it was a priority that we get a cooktop. Mostly its for the aesthetics (we are trying to do a stainless countertop with an integrated sink and a cooktop would work very nicely with that setup) but also I'm a messy cook, and one of my pet peeves is food crumbs falling into the crack between the countertop and the range. I'd also like to mention that I personnally almost never cook with an oven, and was considering not having a wall oven but just going with the breville countertop smart oven. However, my husband who never cooks has promised to get more into cooking once we finish the remodel, and the one time he cooked, he roasted a duck (thanks Mark Bitman), so now he's convinced we need an oven. Anyways, I'm willing to get the oven on the off chance that he'll keep his word and get into cooking =) plus the house will be hard to resell without any accomodation for an oven.

Just an aside - I needed to put an oven under an induction cooktop and with my particular cabinets and cooktop the only one that would fit without a lot of jerryrigging is a Fagor. While I understand there's a lot of reasons companies end up in bankruptcy, it is not because the product was no good, because this oven is great, albeit pretty slow to preheat (but maybe no more so than any other).

Bottom line - It really makes sense to offset the oven from the cooktop, and to get a range instead if you're putting the cooktop directly over the oven (there's really no point in a cooktop over oven combo unless, like me, there was no such thing as we were looking for. Months later, more slide in/drop in induction ranges are coming to market).

I don't know how the installation works, but they have to go in together. :) I'd guess the oven first, just because it's underneath. :) Ask at your appliance store, or the customer service at the manufacturer, if it doesn't say in the installation instructions. The whole cooktop over oven thing started in Europe in exactly your kind of situation, so the Euro brands should have info on it.

Summit seems to make a 24" slide in range, though I don't know anything about the quality. A slide in would solve your crumb problem.

If you have room for a countertop oven, do you have room to put the 24" built in oven at counter height in an oven cabinet?

jgHG writes:

"Tinyhomebuilder, thanks for the heads up on the bluestar range and for giving us a hint of the price, all the websites we looked at said to call for price =) "

You're welcome, jg... : )
I'm happy to let the cat out of the bag. The price for a stainless 24 inch BlueStar is exactly $3,814 including shipping, and no dealer varies one cent from that price.

We also bought a higher stainless back for ease of cleaning. That was an extra $199 for a total of $4,013.

I'm with you on the crumbs. We butted pieces of tempered glass up to the sides of the stove. They also make nice safe landings for blazing hot pots and iron frying pans.

Yeah unfortunately we don't have any other cabinet space to put the wall oven in. I do see everyone's point about getting a range instead of a cooktop and wall oven. We will probably talk to some contractors about installation costs, including any rewiring that needs to be done, before making a final decision. Currently, we don't even have gas connection in the kitchen, and depending on the cost of extending the gas, it is also possible that we'll just end up with an induction cooktop.

Plllog, you're right summit has a low end 24 inch slide in, though from pics it does not appear there is much of a lip to overlap the countertop. Ive seen mixed reviews on their products so it's hard to gauge the quality unless one see it in person.

Tinyhomebuilder, good to know what to expect pricewise for the bluestar. Maybe one day when we get more serious about cooking, we'll feel justified in splurging on one =)

So I did a search just for kicks. There are also gap fillers that overlap the edge of the counter and the edge of the range, and have a part that goes down between to hold it in place, or L shaped with magnets to hold them. They come in silicone (dead easy to clean) and plastic or metal with magnets to hold it to the side of the range. Several colors. Called stovetop extender or gap guard. $6-20 depending on materials.

You could just get a decent quality gas or electric range, depending on what services you get, and some gap fillers and save a lot of money.

One reason I used an undercounter 24" oven rather than a range is that you have space for a cabinet drawer underneath or above the oven, since most are only 24"h as well. Some ranges have storage drawers at the bottom; many do not. If you don't use the oven often, having the drawer on top is very handy for cooking utensil storage just below the cooktop
(choose a thin cooktop though that doesn't require lots of space below it - read the installation specs). The Gaggenau gas cooktop I had didn't even protrude below the countertop, and didn't get hot on the bottom or need additional clearance above a drawer.

Plllog, thanks for looking up the oven gap fillers! I wouldn't have thought something like that exists. Will definitely look at them if we decide to go the route of range instead of cooktop.

Lee, that's a good point about being able to fit a drawer with the cooktop oven combo. Our lower cab space is so limited, it might be worthwhile to get that extra storage space. I think the bertazzoni cooktop we are looking at is around 2-3/4 deep, which is pretty shallow.

So we actually went to a local retailer yesterday hoping to look at some cooktops and ovens. Unfortunately, they had just transitioned out some of the older bertazzoni floor models so no luck there. The rep did Say that he could try to get us the promotion that bertazzoni is currently running, which is a free hood with the purchase of any master or professional series range. technically we are not getting the range but the cooktop and oven is comparable in price and function. If that's the case, we'd get a cooktop, a wall oven, and a hood for about 2000, which is not bad at all. Also, bertazzoni has a 24 inch range for about the same price, which we might seriously consider if the promotion is only limited to ranges.

If your lower cabinet space is very limited, I would seriously consider this thing - it's a 24"w oven that installs in your upper cabinets:

To insert or remove food, the control panel at the bottom and the racks inside lower and raise, as shown in this video. It's made by Gaggenau and called a Lift Oven - that's "lift" as in the predominantly UK/European use of the word, like elevator - and was sold a few years ago for about $5000 before being discontinued in the US. I wouldn't bring this up except that a surplus vendor who snagged five unsold new ones, still in the box with full manufacturer's warranty, is unloading them on eBay for $1,499, only a few hundred more than some basic undercounter ovens from little-known brands sell for. Besides the cool factor, and having an extra 24" of undercounter cabinet space not used by an oven, the big advantage of the Gaggenau is that you don't need to lean down and around an open door to get at your food; it's right in front of you (a big issue for me given my back pain, but a convenience for anyone), and at eye level so it's easy to check on your food's cooking progress. Like other Gaggenau ovens, it also offers all sorts of cooking options and great interior lighting. I may well have used one in my recent kitchen remodel had it been available at this price at the time.