u/Technical-Owl-2257

Anyone have a good recommendation for a tour company to use for a nice multi-generation family tour of Japan (around 2 weeks). My mother had settled on Tauck, which has some nice itineraries and nice hotels (Kyoto FS, etc) but they are booked for the dates we want.

I’m fairly comfortable in Tokyo (been about 20 times for work) but rarely travel elsewhere in Japan and my 84-yo mother would likely appreciate some handholding from a dedicated guide.

I’m looking for a double oven setup, speed oven that can function as a microwave on top, regular oven below. I like the advantium because it has the halogen aspect that can do chicken nuggets etc very quickly (have little kids). But the Monogram oven below seems a little flimsy compared to ovens I’m used to (for example the sliding racks bend with slight pressure and seem a little rickety).

Does anyone else make something comparable? I had a Miele speedoven in the past, but it was basically a slightly faster oven, and we used it mostly as a microwave. That seems to be what most of the other offerings are, too. Am I missing something or is advantium unique?

And either way, should I care about this - is it really much better than other speedovens?

The question: for Subzero owners who have recent experience with other higher-end brands as well (Miele, Thermador, Gaggenau, maybe Bosch (?), etc) do you hear a noticeable difference in the noise level between your Subzero and the others?

Reddit tells me I'm supposed to get Subzero for quality/repairability/customer service/food preservation . I have no idea if the food preservation thing is really that much better than others, but even if it is a little better maybe that is worth something since that is the main point of a refrigerator. I'm less concerned about views on whether it will last 20 years instead of 15 years, but don't want something that completely breaks down in 10 years.

However, I see in Consumer Reports that the best rated Subzero they show, which ranks near the top overall (just below the Miele) is scored near perfect in all categories except NOISE, where they say it is substantially WORSE THAN AVERAGE, and the average includes all of the Korean models plus legacy US brands like Frigidaire etc. So what they are saying is that a $10-15k Subzero is noisier than a $2k fridge from Best Buy. They claim to do decibel readings on all the fridges they test, Subzero refuses to publish decibel ratings, and I grew up with a fairly noisy Subzero fridge/freezer (built in the 1970s) so I'm inclined to believe their view on this.

Related to this, I'm also looking for an undercounter wine/drinks fridge. Same question.

My own experience with this: I had Thermador columns in the last house, and a U-Line beverage fridge (probably not their top of the line, whatever that was in 2011 when I did this the last time). The Thermador columns were super quiet and never gave us any problems in the 8-9 years we had the house. The U-Line would cycle on/off and was fairly loud, which was annoying at night when you were watching a movie or something and you'd hear it in the kitchen (which was right next to the family room, as they often are these days). Our current kitchen, which is getting replaced, has a Liebherr and the lack of noise is about the only good thing about the fridge (door seals are garbage, icemaker breaks repeatedly, electronics blink on/off, and the repair guy who came to fix it once even said "I would have thought you'd have a nicer fridge given how nice your house is").

I posted recently about cabinets, as I’m looking for something that is apparently higher-end than what my kitchen person is used to doing, and trying to figure out how to proceed.

That raised a question, which is: what share of your home value would you spend on a new kitchen?

For us, it seems like it will hopefully be less than 5%, but almost certainly will be more than 3%. Our house is worth a few million, mainly because of its location (ie land value probably half the value).

Is there a commonly accepted rule of thumb for this? I’d think it would be something like a fixed amount (maybe $20-30k) plus some percentage of your home price (3%?).

Median home price $400k, average remodel cost $30k according to the internet.

What percentage of your house value are you spending on your kitchen remodel and what is too much or too little for us to spend on a full remodel?