Wow, all those studies were right. Click-bait really does work! 🙂

You came here thinking I was talking about a kid, or a pet, weren’t you? How disappointed are you to know I’m talking about a refrigerator?

When I wrote the blog about the kitchen, I left out “my contribution” to the overall project. Most of the decisions were Andrea’s, including final floor colour, countertops (actually all three of us agreed on that one!), cupboard choices, design for drawers, choice of sink, etc. But from the beginning, I wanted a new fridge.

At night, when I go to make sandwiches for the next day, I was constantly moving three things out of the way to get to what I wanted, constantly shifting leftovers or vegetables to put the lunch containers back in, constantly dealing with the “tight” crunch of the fridge. Totally a first-world-problem, “I have too much stuff in my fridge”, but it was really annoying. We also didn’t have a great place to assemble the lunches, but that was a separate problem to fix with the flow and other stuff being improved with the reno.

So I wanted a larger fridge, or at least one with much improved flow to it.

I also was quite intrigued and interested in the ones that have the water hookups so you can get water, ice cubes, and crushed ice out of the doors. Some of the layouts are terrible, and the mechanical side of things often is painful as the extra features complicate what is pretty simple technology most of the time. But I love crushed ice drinks.

You might think I mean margaritas or something else alcoholic, but I mean things like a Mr. Misty or Arctic Rush or Slushie, although preferably without quite so much rich syrup. I really just like the ice, with water is fine even. I like eating the ice, it freezes my molar area that is often inflamed by my nightly grinding, and the cool nature also relaxes me. Plus it’s water, so counts towards more water per day and doesn’t add calories.

I checked out a bunch of designs, and some of them had water but not cubes or ice. Not sure what the point of that is as there’s a fountain at the sink right behind me, and it isn’t that cold of water. I wanted the crushed ice option, and even passed on a couple of models that only had cubes. I read Consumer Reports, I read reviews, I compared model after model, mostly eliminating ones that were problematic or didn’t have the features I wanted.

In the end, I chose a Samsung model. Now for the sticker shock — this fridge retails normally for $3600. Yep, for a fridge. My father is rolling in his grave somewhere, and my mom is working the rotisserie. Sure, it’s stainless steel which ups the price, but it is still just a fridge. Highly functional, great looking, lots of room, plus the whole ice thing, but still just a fridge. Given the price we were paying for the reno, I didn’t want to scrimp on the fridge as it was, I’m sorry to say, the part that I probably cared about the most after fixing the island with the sink. Fortunately, that fridge regularly goes on “sale” at $3200, and then goes on a real sale to $2200 once every three months. But still. It’s $2K for a fridge. My wife loves me, so we got it.

It was the cause of much angst for the builders. They had never dealt with one so large, I don’t think. They didn’t plan for it very well, even though they had the model, knew exactly what it looked like, but they just didn’t take the doors into account, a bunch of stuff really.

Was it worth it? It’s heaven. The bottom freezer is larger than our old one, and pretty functional. Not perfect, takes a bit of getting used to, but pretty good. Lots of space on the doors in the main part — doors as in plural. Yep, it’s the french door style, opens left and right. I still tend to open both most of the time, but occasionally I can get away with just one. We haven’t completely worked out where everything should go, but the vegetable drawer and meat / deli / eggs drawer are both much bigger than the old one. Not as functional for drink jugs, but workable. And it’s wider – the old one was 28″ wide, this one is a full 36″, and a bit taller. But the big addition is a separate drawer in the middle, as you can see in the picture below. It’s great…lots of room, including for putting lunches once they’re made, along with snacks and things to go with the lunches. It is designed as a separate “zone” — you can set it for a slightly warmer temperature than the fridge so you can keep snacks cool for parties, or keep it the same temp as the fridge, or two settings further to be able to keep fish cold too. We keep it at the same temp as the fridge, but nice to have options.

The fridge is awesome. I love it. I use the ice feature at least once or twice a day, and oddly enough, the cubes are small enough that I don’t even have to use the crushed ice option. I’ve increased my water intake too, which is good. We did NOT go with the option that included a video display unit that ran Android so that you could watch TV, play music, or leave messages for each other. A bridge too far, and was another $800 past the “regular” price. I agree that stainless steel wasn’t necessarily the best option, but they didn’t have it in white.

I give you the newest addition to the family, Will (as in William the Refrigerator Perry, this thing is massive).