If I can impart one piece of advice on any of you it is this ... never flush a bug with wings without putting the toilet lid down first and ... don't wait until your appliances have broken to pick out new ones.
You. YOU RIGHT THERE.
Go now and pick out every single major appliance you can think of. Browse online, go to stores, ask friends and then decide on what fridge, stove, dryer, washer or vibrator you'd buy if your current one broke. Because once it DOES break, (and it will) you're gonna be in fits and might not have the mental capacity to make a logical, informed, well thought out decision.
If you wait until your appliance breaks to buy a new one you might end up with something ... ugly.
There are a variety of slippery slopes you could go down if you're forced into picking out and buying a major appliance like a refrigerator in the 12 hours you have until your food spoils. And if you're not thinking straight, that slippery slope migt not be paved with an automatic ice maker.
My fridge broke a few weeks ago. When I realized it was on the blink my head started to spin and I got a bit woozy. Partly due to the fear of having to buy a new fridge and partly because I immediately started banging my head against the 13 year old appliance. Sometimes that'll help get things up and running again. It's the Fonzie move but with your head.
It didn't work. I am still without a fridge. Actually, that's a bit of a lie. I now have a total of 3 refrigerators in my kitchen. Three of 'em. My regular, broken fridge, my niece's bar fridge, and my mother's miniature poolside fridge. All in my kitchen.
Why no. It isn't crowded and annoying. Why do you ask? Why do you ask? Why do you ask? Why do you ask?
Sorry. Sometimes the Xanax makes me repeat myself.
Tra la la.
While my first thought was to run out and get a refrigerator immediately so I didn't have to live through what I'm living through right now, I restrained myself. I would rather live for a month or so with completely inadequate fridge storage, a crowded kitchen and the soothing sounds of my Xanax drip than live for the next 10 or 15 years with a fridge I hate.
So every night for the past few weeks I've been looking at and researching refrigerators. I now know exactly what I want. I know right down to the last detail. I also know ... this fridge I have in my head? It doesn't exist.
More on that later.
For now ... a look at what's out there. I need to come to a decision quickly by the way. I'm overrun with carrots, beets and zucchinis from the front yard vegetable garden and have nowhere to put em.
The Most Beautiful Refrigerators from Around the World.
The increasingly popular French Door fridge. I was surprised that the cost of a full sized French Door Viking refrigerator was only a few thousand dollars. I would have guessed more. Great professional style handles, nice clean lines and I'll admit it, the Viking label up in the right hand corner kindda sucks me in.
I absolutely love the look of professional appliances with all of my heart. This True column refrigerator is one of my favourites. Sadly I can't have it because it has no freezer. I don't need a big freezer because we have an upright freezer in the mudroom, but I do need something so I'm not always having to trudge 5 steps to the mudroom when I want ice or nuts for cooking or whatever.
The other downfall to actual professional refrigerators like this is they're louder than refrigerators meant for the home. They have fans in the top of them that run constantly. They never, ever, shut off. I would find that constant drone in the kitchen annoying. I think. I DO love the look of this though. Hmm.
Source: True via Costco
This idea comes from a environmental lifestyle expert Danny Seo. This is one of the best ideas for chalkboard paint I've seen in a long time. This could actually work in my 1940's kitchen. It would probably look out of place in a kitchen with new cupboards and shiny new things that aren't ... cracked and broken.
Source: Daily Danny
This LG refrigerator is way too small for me but I thought it was so cute I had to include it. Fantastic fridge if you have a tiny kitchen or need an extra fridge for the basement or pool house. I don't have a pool house. I have an algae filled pond and a potting shed.
Source: LG
Get ready for the fridge I would buy even if I couldn't afford it. The only reason I will not buy this fridge is I don't have room for it. I would have room for it if I got rid of my stove, but then I'd have to go on one of those raw diets where nothing is cooked and I happen to like my chicken cooked. My beets too. I could probably go either way with cookies. This fridge exterior is by the Italian company Meneghini with the inner workings by high end German refrigerator manufacturer Liebherr. It's the Ferrari and the Mercedes Benz of refrigerators.
Oh. And as you can see from the panelling you can also get a woody.
Source: Smeg
I've been seeing the "armoire" refrigerator more and more lately. I wasn't able to find a manufacturer of one, but rather people have bought high end refrigerators (Sub-Zero) and had the armoires custom built around them. Something like you see below would cost approximately $20,000 for the Sub-Zero fridge and then the custom cabinet made to house it. I'll admit they've done a great job on this and I actually like the look of it. But I wouldn't want it in my kitchen. The same way I wanted to make sure my vegetable garden looked like a vegetable garden, not a bunch of vegetables disquised as flowers ... I want my fridge to look like a fridge.
Source: General Electric/Monogram Series
I realize this is the sort of thing that would scare a lot of people away, but I have wanted a glass front refrigerator for years. And I think I'm one of the few who doesn't immediately think "everything has to be perfect inside it". I really don't think that's the case. There are some precautions I would take to ensure it looked nice, but I definitely wouldn't worry about having mustard bottles on display or other everyday items.
The one thing it WILL have to be is clean at all times. The fridge above is the General Electric Monogram and it's the closest thing to the perfect fridge I can find.
It has a glass door, comes with a freezer, is made for the home so it isn't too loud and it's stainless. IT HAS LED LIGHTING ALL THE WAY DOWN THE SIDES OF THE INTERIOR! But it's out of my budget. I think.
Because I spend a HUGE amount of time in my kitchen I plan to spend a lot on my fridge and I won't feel one bit guilty about it. My fridge and stove are my toys. They're my vacation and my workhorses. I use them every day and I use them a lot.
When I see magazines filled with pages and pages of kitchens boasting Sub-Zero refrigerators and Wolf or Viking stoves I think ... but you don't cook in that kitchen. I can TELL you don't cook in that kitchen.
There aren't a lot of men out there buying Ferraris to just look at them. So why do so many women do it with high end appliances?
This next fridge is similar to the GE Monogram only definitely out of my budget. The Sub-Zero glass door fridge has a little larger glass area than the Monogram, which I like. The more glass the better.
So ... if the more glass the better, that would make this fridge the very BEST, right? It's perfect in so many ways, yet so wrong in so many others. Full glass door, but no freezer, plus it's a genuine commercial refrigerator so it would have the constant humming of a fan all day and night long. BUT, it's only $1,500.
Source: Frigidaire via Costco
We're going on a month with no real refrigerator here and I still have no idea what I'm going to buy so tonight I'm going to proceed with my last resort.
Before I tuck myself in tonight I'm putting a zucchini under my pillow and keeping one eye open for the elusive Glass Front Fridge Fairy.
Update: I ended up buying a new refrigerator when I redid my kitchen and I went with a True Professional series glass front refrigerator. And I absolutely LOVE it. You can see it in my kitchen and read all what it's like to live with a glass front fridge in this post.
Evalyn
Chalkboard paint is a scurge on the land. I cannot wait until decorators finally get tired of this trend. Seriously? Dust bunnies are not enough, I need chalk dust too? Not to mention matte black surfaces to keep clean. Fie, I say. Fie.
Shauna
I love love love the Meneghini (sans wood), but alas it wouldn't fit in my tiny area specifically built for a fridge. I like the look of the glass door, but don't like that you lose the shelving in the door - we use those a lot. I love any fridge with a freezer on the bottom, so the top one is likely what we would end up with if we could find one to fit in our tiny space. p.s., I dislike my current fridge, but we were lucky that it came with the house.
Karen
Shauna - You don't actually lose any space. Your refrigerator right now that has shelving in the door has to make room for that shelving somehow. So manufacturers shave off several inches from your interior shelves to make room for the door shelves. Although without those shelves I don't know where I'd put my salad dressing that expired in 2004. ~ karen
wendy
Love the GE Monogram series. Especially the 36" range/oven. Just waiting for my profile to die. However I think I still have a few years. :(.
Julia at Home on 129 Acres
The anxiety of knowing your fridge is about to die is about equal to the annoyance of having the dead fridge still sitting in your kitchen along with the new one (or temporary ones). We went the cheap and cheerful, don't really care what it looks like route after our old fridge started whistling and moaning. Fingers crossed for a big kitchen renovation in the next five years that will include the big, beautiful, yet-to-be-discovered fridge of my dreams. BTW, Joan over at for the love of a house has a glass door refrigerator and has posted on her display strategies--although she might be a bit more "neat and tidy" than you prefer.
Karen
She has my most favourite kitchen ever. I have a picture of it saved on my computer and go back and look at it all the time. Her fridge is organized well. Perfect in fact. It isn't all cutesy with fake food on display. She has her jam and mustard and all that stuff in there, it's just in nice straight lines. Like it. ~ karen
Kristen S
Glass front fridges = awesome
Good luck on your quest. My only bit of advice is I would advise against a fridge with a bottom freezer door. We have a Samsung with a freezer door, and to get anything out, you have to open the freezer door completely and then pull out an interior drawer. You may not think that's a pain, but how often do you just open the freezer a crack to pull out something easy like ice? Freezer drawer=good, freezer door=sucky
Kelly
You are giving me a painful flashback to building a new house two years ago and having to pick out all appliances in an afternoon. Stove and oven was easy, fridge not so much. Dishwasher was a right off. Still can't load bowls properly on the top rack and it is a good brand. Too many choices makes it very hard for the somewhat indecisive. Service is definitely important. Good luck, may the force be with you.
ruth
Thanks for the tip about noisy commercial fridges. I did not know that. Will save me hours of searching.
Lynn
BTW - your idea about making a list of "not what if but when" replacement appliances is BRILLIANT. What would we do without you Karen? I gasp at the thought.
taria
where we live (90 miles out of LA in the desert) I had trouble just getting a repair guy that knew what he was doing with Bosch brands. He messed up the front of my beautiful washer and I was told tough luck. Thanks Lowe's service warranty. I now go with brands that I know there are local service guys for. A fridge is really important to those of us that really cook. Glad you are taking time finding the right one! Can't wait to see what ends up in your kitchen.
Lynn
Ok this post is like "50 Shades of Fridge"... refrigerator p*rn.. who knew? Good luck on choosing Karen ~ until you do I say just "chill". Hee hee [ps NOT a fan of the armoire fridge]
Amy
How in the WORLD do y'all live without ice and water in the door? I spend all day shouting, "Close the refrigerator door!" as it is. If they opened it everytime they needed a drink we'd be living on curdled milk.
Cynthia
We've had the professional (read that as oversized) separate refrigerator and freezer units. Yup, they're loud, and while it has totally usable, easy to see where everything is, no weird egg cups or canned drink dispensers spaces, they lose their cool when the door opens. And those motors? They are loud and they do run constantly. Very annoying and very expensive to operate.
Vikings look great, and yup, they're pricey. But do some on-line research, their range of appliances frequently need repairs, and parts aren't easy to come by, especially where we live.
My husband loves to save money and he also loves to look for unusual (odd) solutions to everyday dilemmas. Combine the two and you come up with what we're currently working with. Our very own Rubiks-cube version of keeping everything organized and refrigerated and/or frozen in two separate chest freezer units. He found an electronic thermostat that turns one of the freezers on/off at refrigerator temperatures. Each unit has two small, two medium and two large plastic boxes with lid handles and flaps to keep them all attached. Now when we need our frozen walnuts for oatmeal cookies, we only have to move the hanging basket, and the top big box to reach the medium box on the bottom of the freezer, where they're stored. (It's on the bottom right side, so we only have to move the right hand boxes. And it's in the bottom box because I only make cookies a couple of times a month.) The refrigerator has its own organization system. I guess there's a certain kind of logic to it all...sure helps to be OCD. I knew that would come in handy some day.
WWIII only erupts when someone (who shall remain nameless, but who gets the blame for this bright idea) doesn't put everything back EXACTLY where it belongs.
I'll admit, it is much quieter in the kitchen with these chest-type units. And the minimized electricity usage saves on our utility bills each month. With my fondness for storing everything in freezer-style Ziplock bags, it is definitely more organized.
So for about $800 for the two freezer units, the electronic thermostat and $200 for the plastic storage boxes, we have our current solution. At least as long as he remembers to put everything back where it belongs!
tom poon
That sounds complicated as shit.
Cynthia
Never a truer statement, Tom.
CJ
I have one with french doors and a bottom freezer. I love it! Ours is stainless on the front and black on the sides - a good way to save some $ if your fridge sides won't be seen. I've always been mesmerized by the refrigerators with glass doors. I spend a lot of time looking inside the fridge for something to eat. It'd be easier and waste lees energy if I could see everything. Oh, for a fridge/freezer with glass inserts and french doors...
Gayla T
I started this post with Karen, are you nuts? That goes w/o saying so then I started with What's wrong with Normal? Obviously, that wasn't going to work. Then I decided on Are you normally this nuts.....nope, we know the answer to that. I guess I'll just tell you the Oklahoma story. I'll leave out all the reasons that we moved to OK and just say it was his job which is true but not all of it. We signed a lease for a year on a new house in a subdivision while they built one for us. It had been a model home so the bathroom was painted a soft aqua like the color that's the rage again so I needed a window curtain to match so I began my hunt. At that time Oklahoma City was the largest in the US by the amount of land it covered and I spent my days driving from one end to the other looking for a curtain with aqua and lavender large flower print. Kind of whispy and soft. After being sure I had hit every dept. store I started on fabric stores. Anyone can make a curtain. That was before you could buy stuff to make your own pattern on fabric. I searched and searched never paying much attention to the hub and his new job. He hated it. After 9 months he came home and told me he had just quit and to start packing. The last thing I packed was the towel hanging over a rod at the window. The first thing I saw at the first store I went into after coming back to KS was that curtain. It was MY curtain that I had obsessed over and dreamed of for all that time and it was at Sears. The moral of this story is....heck, I don't know. I guess when the time is right you'll find the perfect fridge. I'd be looking at the restraunt supply places and the auctions in the paper of going out of business sales. The odds of making it in that business is almost nil and you can get the best deals on professional stuff that's slightly used. I've had a couple of friends go into it and bought all the very best and didn't last a year. Here the cupcake stores are folding fast as are caterers and B&B's. There should be a load of pro stuff on the market. Every story has an end if not a moral and I'm dying to hear this one.
Laura
I realize that this advice would have been significantly more helpful a month ago, but did you know that you can rent major appliances on a short-term basis for just such a catastrophe? At least you can here in the states.
There are companies that specialize in this but I'd start with a local mom and pop appliance store. Of course, it's nice if you buy one from them as well once you've picked out a model. They can order almost anything you might want, even if they don't stock it. They might even be willing to cut you a deal...
Lois
That tiny fridge with the chalkboard paint - that's the one I have now, minus the paint. It is going on 10 yrs old and I have started looking around since every other appliance I put in 10 yrs ago has broken in the past year. Despite the fact that the house was built in 1938 and has a front door made for a fat troll (42"x76"), the widest opening into the kitchen is just under 30" (unless we want to start removing windows and lifting a fridge with a crane)so that tall, thin LG is looking pretty good to me. Thanks for the tip.
Dawna Jones
I have always felt that the consumers report in this instance is always helpful when making these kind of purchases. And according to the GE.is the by far the most superior product out there.I have a girlfriend who's had one now for 12 years and it started to go on the fritz the other day and ended up costing her only 125.00 to fix the dam thing. Something to think about.
http://www.dawnajonesdesign.com/
kati
You should check out Gorenje fridges. They are the ones who make the SMEG products too.
They have some nice designs, and the price/quality ratio is great.
I have my eyes on a shiny black one.
Lisa
I have a KitchenAid french door, freezer on the bottom model... under $3000 US. I like it, but it's not a glass front.
I also have a 36" wolf that I use almost every day. I love it....a lot. (except that's a big oven to heat up in the summer time, so I have a toaster oven hidden in the basement.)
Heather
We have needed a new fridge for a while. The defrost cycle is wonky. We have tried to get if fixed several times but alas it is on its last legs. And now we need a new stove (after a curious incident involving our 20 year old daughter and some friends while house sitting.) Too many choices out there. Was overwhelmed by Fridge pondering, now throw in stove options and I am a total basket case.