My husband and I have totally different tastes, which can make home decisions difficult. A lot of debate went into choosing a refrigerator.
It’s no secret that Jesse and I don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of design choices. We’ve debated light fixtures, paint colors, furniture choices, you name it. Well as of yesterday you can add appliances to the list. Our old refrigerator, which came with the house, started leaking on the inside a few months ago.
It’s happened before, and all we had to do was unplug it and let it defrost. But defrosting your fridge every 3 months gets really old really fast. We had a repair guy out in December to look at it, and he told us that he’d just tell our home warranty people it was irreparable and see if they’d pay for a new one. They agreed and several months later we got our check for $800 and are off to get a new fridge! If only things were ever that simple. But yesterday we kept running into the same issue, we could not agree on what we wanted, aside from stainless steel.
Choosing a Refrigerator Style
I’d like a French door style fridge: 
They look great and have a ton of room on the inside. Plus I don’t have to bend over to get out my cheese and wine. Priorities. I also think the french door style is an OCD woman’s person’s paradise. Everything will have a space. Plus the freezer drawer is broken up into it’s own compartments as well. What’s not to love?!
What’s missing from this amazing fridge? For Jesse it’s the water/ice dispenser on the front. Which is fine I can compromise and give up some storage space for that. 
Then he gives me a real answer. He hates the freezer drawer. How can you hate the drawer?! It’s so pretty and organized! He says he doesn’t want to bend over to get ice cream, but I think it’s genius. Bending over is like doing crunches right? So you have to do a few crunches to get to the ice cream, win-win. Instead Jesse likes the side-by-side. 
Which is great, and way nicer than the broken piece of junk we have right now. But my issue is the shelves on the fridge side. My mom has 3 kids still at home and whenever I go to visit shuffling stuff around in there is a pain. You usually have to take out the milk to get to the juice, etc. I know, I know #firstworldproblems
I told Jesse at least I’m not trying to get the 4 part fridge out of him. There’s a whole drawer for chilling wine. Or produce. Either or!
We ended up going to Lowe’s, Home Depot and the Sears Scratch and Dent Outlet last night and couldn’t find anything in our price range that we agreed on. We’ll probably save up some more money and stick with the leaky fridge we have for a few more weeks, and continue to debate about what we should get until then. I’ll definitely be sharing pictures when we finally get a stainless steel beauty in the kitchen!
Which fridge would you choose? And remember that I’m your friend, not Jesse 😉
**All images from lowes.com**
We currently have a side by side, two door fridge and our freezer is OVERFLOWING! We actually had to take everything out and put everything back in, in a strategic way, when we got groceries. There is just not enough room! So, I think Jesse should take one for the team, and go with a drawer freezer. 😀
I’m with Jesse on this one! I HATE the freezer on the bottom, and I LOVE my side by side. In my experience, the freezer drawer clutter is a hundred times worse than the freezer in a side by side. 🙂
I personally like your first choice! We have a Poland Spring water dispenser so getting water from the fridge is not an issue we have. Good luck settling this one! Hope you win. 😉
I thought I’d love a side by side fridge/freezer, but I can hardly fit anything in the freezer, or the fridge for that matter sometimes. We actually have a freezer in our garage that holds most freezer items. Icecream is definitely in the kitchen freezer for easy access (albiet no crunches to get to it). Oh and tell Jesse, a side by side still has some freezer drawers and that you’re going to store the icecream all the way at the bottom of it.
Please go with the drawer. It’s SO MUCH BETTER. For us, we get into the freezer a lot less than the fridge. And the fridge is larger and at eye-level. I’ll never go back.
I’m not sure which one I would choose. Originally I would have said I was with Jesse on this one. However, if I really think about it, it would be a real pain to store large items in the side by side. Like when I roast a whole chicken and want to store it in the fridge in the roasting pan. it would take up a whole shelf. I may have to reconsider the freezer on the bottom option. Getting my hubby to agree might be an issue though. We definitely would have the water dispenser though. We’ve switched to drinking a lot of water and it annoys me when we forget to refill the Brita pitcher and their is barely enough in there for one glass.
Our new one I a French door style and I love it. You really do feel like you have more room and it’s easy to keep everything organized. I also love that te door doesn’t take up as much space when it’s open. Like you I don’t need an ice dispenser on the outside. We rarely use ice anyway.
I will tell you from experience (and I am 54 yrs old) that you will not like the side-by-side. The freezer section is much too small to fit anything into. Then with the ice dispenser taking up 30% of that space, you have even less freezer area than you realize. The shelf space is too narrow to even fit a frozen pizza into. Side-by-side refrigerator/ freezers have been around for a long time and folks have grown so tire of not having enough room in them that that’s exactly why some genius decided to invent the french door refrigerator/freezer. Actually, my grandfather used to work for Fridgidaire and my grandparents had a fridge with the freezer on the bottom for most of my life when no one else had one. My grandmother loved it because it had more room than most freezers back in the 1960-70s.
You definately want a french door fridge with the freezer on the bottom. The doors don’t take up as much space when they’re opened, you can arrange the shelves to accommodate all shapes and sizes of food items, and the freezer has much more space to store frozen items. Just watch for sales, look for coupons and combine your discounts like Krystal on Color Transformed Family did.
We bought a new fridge when we bought our house, the house didn’t come with one and honestly if it had I don’t know if I’d have been willing to use it. We just have a plain old freezer on top model. Do I wish it were fancy, sure. But we don’t really have that much need for water/ice in the door. I don’t use ice, my husband only does occasionally. We have a Brita pitcher in the fridge and that covers the cold, filtered water need. If you don’t already have water lines to your fridge, that adds to the expense too.
I’m not a huge fan of a side by side, they never seem to have enough space. I can’t say anything about the freezer on bottom because I don’t really have any experience. We barely use the top freezer because we have a deep freeze.
Good luck! I know making those big purchases can be a giant pain!
Ooooooh I’m jealous of all of these fancy fridges! I’ve always had “rental fridges” since I moved out of my parent’s house (although I own the one I have now but was on a SERIOUS budget! We have the freezer on top).
I think the french door, freezer drawer fridges look so gorgeous and are SUPER functional if you store big things (i.e. for entertaining). The only downside to the freezer drawer is the clutter like Laura mentioned above. But if you can keep things organized, I vote team French Door! 🙂
I would LOVE a freezer drawer!
But I’m also with Jesse on the water dispenser. We have a Brita, but if we had a water dispenser we could get rid of it.
My favourite of the ones you pictured is the 4 parter. How amazing is that?!
The refrigerator at our old apartment started to do that leaking thing and it was a nightmare! Thankfully, that fridge got left behind 🙂
I’m on your side with the french doors and the bottom drawer! Have you seen the fridges with internal water dispensers? My friend has one at her family’s Summer house and it is the best thing EVER – so that’s something to look into 🙂
I think freezer drawers are the best (sorry Jesse!) but as someone who doesn’t have an ice/water dispenser I’d love to have one.
Totally with you!! (And not just because you’re my friend and not Jesse – haha). I hate side by sides. Useless to me. I would love a french door, freezer drawer fridge! We had to buy a new fridge recently when the one that came with our house died. We hashed it out for awhile too but we were mainly thinking budget since this fridge will likely be left behind when we sell in the nearish future. It’s definitely not our dream fridge!!
I’m SOOOO on your side, and not only because you’re my friend, because you’re RIGHT!! Dan also thought the drawer was weird until we got one in our old house. Now we are back to the old-fashioned kind and there is nothing we miss more than that drawer!
My mom has the french door style, and while I don’t like having to bend down for ice cream, either, it really is much more space efficient.
Our side-by-side freezer is practically useless. It’s also from the 80’s, so maybe it was more usable back then. But instead of shelves, it has baskets, so everything is a mess.
So I guess I’m team french-door style haha. But the ice dispenser is a must! 😀
We JUST got our new fridge delivered yesterday – it is a french door stainless steel one and it replaced our super ugly 15 year old white whale fridge. I keep opening and closing the doors, I love it so much. I even texted pictures of it to my friends! I’m like Jesse and was leery of the freezer drawer, but honestly the awesomeness that is the french door part washes away any trepidation on the freezer. I’m going to blog about it all on Friday! PS: We got ours for HALF price at Best Buy – it was a special order, but the buyer rejected it because there was an itty bitty ding on one of the doors (that I had to scrunch down to even see!). The price went from $1700 to $950 and we ended up getting it for $825. Who knew you could negotiate with the scratch and dent guy?
Maybe a compromise of getting the french door fridge but then saving up and buying a full freezer or deep freezer for the garage? I really like the french door style too (plus they’re more energy efficient with the freezer underneath) BUT I have to agree with Jesse. The drawer seems like it would get more cluttered than shelves. Good luck in the battle of the fridges! haha
I like the french-style; the drawer is a definite bonus…but we have a side by side and it works for us!
we have the 3 part with the freezer at the bottom and we LOVE it. so roomy. we have a water and ice dispenser too and i dont miss any door space.
also a whole compartment for wine chilling??sounds like i need THAT fridge!
I feel VERY strongly on this issue. French door is the ONLY way to go. We had a side-by-side in our first house. French door in our current house. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better.
I LOVE that 4 part fridge. We looked at it, but it was not the right size for our kitchen.
Kevin and I don’t agree on anything either…it’s amazing we were able to pick out the fridge. One thing we definitely did agree on was the freezer drawer bottom. Sorry Jesse! That is absolutely the way to go!! It totally makes way more sense. You only have ice cream maybe (maybe) once a day, but you go into the fridge dozens of times a day.
I like your pick with the freezer on the bottom and the water dispenser-this way you both get something you like!
My family has had a standard, a side-by-side, and one with the freezer on the bottom (it wasn’t french door though).
The problem with side-by-side is that space is TIGHT, and there are still bottom shelves you’re going to have reach for.
I prefer the freezer on the bottom. Typically the stuff in there gets used a lot less than what’s in the refrigerator so there’s actually a lot less bending.
I’m definitely not a side by side girl. The spacing is so awkward. While we have a regular ole fridge, I’d totally go for French doors. I hate having to get on my knees to find the olives in the very back of the bottom shelf of the fridge. #tallpeopleproblems
I actually don’t like the freezer on the bottom. In theory it’s fine for me, but my in laws have one, and almost every time I see someone get ice out of the drawer – they spill it. I am not kidding – every time, it’s so awkward to get to. Haha but that could e just their specific freezer. ANYWAY-ice issues aside-I’m pretty sure they would all be great choices!!
The last two fridges we bought (including one for this new house) have been the French door with the freezer on the bottom. I’ll never go back. I hesitate to mention this… but we also got the extra chiller drawer thingy. 😉 DO IT JESSE!!!
Oh how I love appliances! I really want a french door fridge too and loved reading the comments above. It seals the deal for me. But, we will have to wait until one of our perfectly operational appliances kick the can.
Haha I understand! Ours is still there and leaking but my husband is waiting for the “perfect” deal… :p