<p>If the situation does not improve, I may have to buy a new refrigerator soon. I remember as a kid having the freezer at the bottom, then side by side was all the rage, now freezer bottom is back in fashion.</p>
<p>Anyone have the new freezer bottom, French door top? Anything you were surprised by? Anything you absolutely love or hate about it?</p>
<p>What about the counter depth ones?</p>
<p>We’ve had bottom freezer models for many years (long before they came back in style, back when you were lucky to find one model in a store). We love them! One problem is that when items fall out of the wire drawers, into the bottom of the freezer, they are a little hard to retrieve. But it is great having everything in the fridge at a reasonable height (hubby and I are both tall, so having the less-frequently-accessed freezer down below our knees makes a lotmof sense).</p>
<p>Ours is thenolder style, with only one door on the fridge. The freezer is basically a pull out, with an upper and lower wire drawer to put stuff in. </p>
<p>We have the bottom freezer, which seems to me the logical place for it since we get into the fridge 10 times more frequently. It has a stationary top shelf, and a large pull-out basket plus storage in the door. Love it.</p>
<p>I’ve never had a French-door fridge, but they seem cramped to me. I’ll stick with my single - door model. </p>
<p>Some previous discussion here. Hope it helps.</p>
<p><a href=“French Door Refrigerator? - Parent Cafe - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1606231-french-door-refrigerator-p1.html</a></p>
<p>I had a side by side, and then a freezer on the bottom model. I really liked the refrigerator aspect of the freezer on the bottom–but I hated using the freezer. Whatever I wanted seemed always to be buried at the bottom, so I had to pull out everything on top of it. And in doing so I inevitable dropped something behind the wire baskets and had to struggle to get it back out.</p>
<p>We are renovating the kitchen of the condo we just bought here in DC, and we are going back to side-by-side. The biggest downside is we can’t lay a frozen pizza flat–but then we don’t buy frozen pizza anyway.</p>
<p>We had a side by side…hated it. New fridge is a French door with the fridge at the bottom. I love it. DH isn’t so sure. Like any other fridge, you get used to the layout. </p>
<p>Our freezer is a drawer. It has a smaller drawer at the top. It’s not so deep that things get lost in the bottom. I love the smaller drawer at the top of the freezer. </p>
<p>Ours had to be counter depth due to its location…so not as many choices.</p>
<p>I like the French door way better than the side by side.</p>
<p>Another vote for French door top, freezer bottom. No issues with it, but we do have another freezer for meat and bigger items.</p>
<p>Like MOWC, I too have a separate freezer. When I cook soup or chili, I make enough to freeze for weekday meals. </p>
<p>Ditto what Thumper said. </p>
<p>What Thumper said! </p>
<p>French door. </p>
<p>We love our side-by-side. But we have a fairly wide space. Friends with narrower side-by-side don’t like them as much. </p>
<p>We’ve looked at french door models. We want to like them because the fridge section is soooo appealing. But we use our freezer a lot and are not crazy about bottom freezer. DH is tall, so he’d only be interested in the one’s with extra/top drawer. They are pricey. As you compare your options, take a look at all the shelves on the door of side by side. You won’t have those on a bottom freezer. It’s a big deal to us, maybe not so much for other famlies. </p>
<p>A few years ago we had to replace our white side by side quickly. We opted for a black non-glossy side by side. That works with current other white/black appliances and gives us option of transitioning them to black or stainless down the road. </p>
<p>We have shelves in both doors of our French door fridge. The door shelves on one side can hold gallon containers. We have the same amount of door storage in our French door as our side by side. </p>
<p>I like that the food is at eye level. And I’m not leaning over to get into the produce or cheese drawers. </p>
<p>I’ve been looking at the bottom freezer models and I’m thinking when I bite the bullet and get a new one, it will be a side by side again. I have a certain organization to my freezer and I think I’d have a hard time adjusting to one big bin and one little bin. Each shelf and each drawer has a purpose in my freezer now- meats, juices, frozen dinners, breakfast foods, etc. I feel like I’d be hunched over searching for stuff all the time with the big bin at the bottom. </p>
<p>House we moved into has a side by side. Don’t like it. Have researched French door ones- waiting for a good deal. Freezer on the bottom is most energy efficient. Check the July issue of Consumer Reports for reliabilities and their comments.</p>
<p>French door fridges have great shelves in fridge area. One model even has a “front layer” on one side for commonly accessed drinks. But I truly would miss the doors on my side-by-side freezer. It’s our only freezer, and because we have a wide model I pack a lot of food into the freezer. It’s still possible that we’ll consider french door down the road… but with trepidation on the freezer trade-off.</p>
<p>We bought a freezer drawer on bottom, single door on top.
Its smallish as there are just two of us & we got along with a bar fridge and a chest freezer for years.
Really like it. It has an ice maker in the freezer which we havent hooked up. Didnt like how much room the water in the door took.
The freezer is divided into two drawers and those are divided in half.
Unlike our chest or top freezer, the bottomfreezer has a light!
Ours isnt counter depth, but it is only 30" wide.</p>
<p>
If you keep it organized like you say you do, I’m unsure you’ll really be searching for that long! ;)</p>
<p>Just throwing this out there, there are the models that have two freezer sections versus the “bottomless pit” some of you guys dislike. Wouldn’t hurt to look into those. </p>
<p>Came very close to buying a french door fridge. The research we did suggested that they are very noisy, and we too need counter depth. For now our existing fridge is limping along. Am stalling as long as I can.</p>
<p>I just bought a new refrigerator. Went with the French door with freezer on the bottom. So far it is very quiet. I’m getting used to the freezer but love, love, love the top part. </p>
<p>I did not get water and ice in the door. I needed a smaller than the usual made size now. 33 in as opposed to 36. It was going to be $1000 more for the ice in the door. I figured I could open the freezer for $1000! My neighbor told me afterwards that when she read reviews on refrigerators, the biggest complaint was about the ice in the door breaking. It has a long way to travel in the French door and I could see it being a problem. </p>