<p>My french door…and all of the French door fridges I looked at…had a drawer at the top of the freezer, and then storage below that drawer too. I have not “lost” any more at the bottom of my French door than I did in my side by side. </p>
<p>I think you “get used to” whatever configuration you have. We didn’t like the side by side for a while…too narrow in both fridge and freezer. But we got used to it. The french door has its down sides too…but really, it’s a fridge. For the most part, I like having the food at eye level…really don’t need the freezer there!</p>
<p>Our bottom freezer has two wire drawers and each drawer is divided in half, so it is much easier to find things in the freezer. It is also lit,( lighted?) a feature that neither our chest freezer or top freezer had.
Its nice to have the drawer pull out, rather than having to stick my head in there with my old chest freezer.</p>
<p>looking forward–if it’s the door gasket, which is what it sounds like, it’s an easy fix and pretty inexpensive. I replaced one previously with a little help from my DS. I ordered it online and followed the online instructions I found.</p>
<p>One suggestion re the color palette, ie white vs stainless. There’s a Whirlpool color option called “White Ice”. It’s a white appliance with a curved stainless steel handle.</p>
<p>I just had to replace a stainless dishwasher and since we have white cabinetry, decided to go with the White Ice. Even though our cabinets are dingy and need repainting (along with new counters!), I really like the White Ice option. It works with other stainless in our kitchen but blends almost better with the cabinets. </p>
<p>Our old fridge will need replacing soon (so I’m following this thread closely–thanks for all your input!), and we’ll go with a White Ice fridge too. Hope it comes in the French Style as well as side by side.</p>
<p>The White Ice stove is nice too. I probably should have gotten it…but I do like my plain white whirlpool stove…that matches my white French door fridge.</p>
<p>I really like my new french door fridge. I have always had a separate freezer in laundry room, as I cook in quantity. This one replaced a bottom freezer. </p>
<p>I don’t think one can go wrong with either white or SS. On Gardenweb, lots of people have opted for bisque color, even if they have to special order.</p>
<p>My ideal kitchen would have EVERYTHING at an ideal (countertop?) height- no bending or reaching- top freezer and refrigerator sections. And of course this huge kitchen would have everything within reach without walking long distances. Fantasy, not reality. </p>
<p>You have to decide priorities (hmm- just like other things in life, such as college hunting). Energy efficiency? Space for cold/frozen foods? Reaching/bending for cold or frozen foods? Side by side has the worst space utilization and is bottom on energy efficiency. There’s the tradeoff with every type.</p>
<p>Let us know which type you choose, please. We replaced a heat pump last fall instead of replacing the old style Freon and fixing it. Freon’s price escalated hundreds fold in recent years.</p>
<p>I have a French Door Kitchen Aid that I love.
It replaced a Side-by-side particularly because it was hard to fit certain things into the narrow freezer.
But so many French Door models had 2 separate compartments in the bottom freezer, not getting that large roast to fit easily.
The Kitchen Aid has multiple sections: an ice maker bin along side a roll out basket, a shallow full width drawer (think sheet cake) and one deep drawer with a removable partition (which I removed before plugging in).</p>
<p>Luckily, our fridge fits in a ‘made for it’ spot that is standard not counter depth. The width is tight tight tight though. Online shopping says sears has the best price today.</p>
<p>Glad yours is in working order shellz. Handy hubby ordered a part to try the easy fix for ours. Turned out that wasn’t it. Not worth investing big bucks to replace compressor.</p>
<p>New fridge from sears being delivered tomorrow! Shopped by comparing highly rated consumer reports fridges and the best deal at sears. (Compared online prices at lowes, home depot and costco as well.)</p>
<p>Yeah, we were worried it was the compressor too. Hence my need for advice/reviews, and fun online window shopping. Sigh…the new French door models are so nice. But, with the fixit list around here right now, I’m counting my blessings. </p>
<p>I’m thinking the next appliance to go is our very old, twice repaired (actually just broke it down, cleaned it and greased it up) dryer. So far so good…but the clock is ticking on that one!</p>
<p>So an update here. DH and I had pretty much decided on a fairly cheap white fridge. We didn’t care a lot as to how long it lasted. We knew we would leave it here or use it as a second fridge in the future. We went out yesterday to take a look at it. For a brief moment I thought I found a 1/2 price replacement that could be fitted with my existing cabinet panels. No such luck. Kitchen Aid has changed the size of the panels slightly in 12 years. The odd thing was that the Kitchen Aid website didn’t even show this fridge existed. </p>
<p>DH opened a couple of French door fridges, and I saw the look of “love.” This is the same man that didn’t have any opinions on appliances when we built the house. I tried to steer him back to the cheap model, but when I saw the possible cabinet panel floor model and started thinking about that, the floodgates opened. We ended up purchasing an LG French door model in Stainless. Oh well, so much for the matching appliances. DH insists we’ll take it with us as that is not uncommon in this area. It’s not the counter depth like we have but just a few inches deeper overall. </p>
<p>Delivery is scheduled for tomorrow from Lowes. Until Saturday everything is an extra 10% off. I just spoke with my mother. It turns out they just bought a Whirlpool French door fridge for their winter condo. She loves it.</p>
<p>Now, does anyone have any creative ideas as to how to use old cabinet panels? They are beautiful cherry wood. I just took them out. I don’t know how we’ll use them, but I can’t see sending them to the landfill. I also took out the old wire freezer baskets. I’m going to try to put them in the new freezer drawer to keep small items better organized.</p>