We have a SxS 25.1CF. It SHOULD be large enough for the two of us. Indeed, it holds a lot of "stuff", but I always feel as if I'm crawling down a rabbit hole whenever I try to extricate anything from it. I will never have a SxS again if I have anything to say about it. I bake and decorate all the birthday cakes for our extended family and this fridge won't hold anything larger than a 9x13 size. Consequently, we kept our older fridge in the garage for such things. I know, silly to pay electricity to run two, when one should be sufficient. Our reno doesn't start until late September, but I have ordered the new fridge. A French door. Not because I think I need to be "with it", but I believe I will have better access to my stuff. And I got one with a drawer, because I think that will cut down on the opening and closing of the entire thing a lot. I don't remember the CF, but it is a bit larger than what we have now. DH is not convinced that we will be able to get rid of the second fridge, but I think he will see that I'm right. Only time will tell.

Living with a small refrigerator while living overseas helped me realize how little space my family of 6 really needs. Of course, in that scenario, we had no Costco to shop in for bulk items. Even now though, I find the smaller space helps me keep things cleaned out. We just upgraded to a CD french door, but we have an old fridge on top, SD in the basement to help with freezer overflow.

We needed a new fridge a few years ago but didn't want to spend too much as we knew we'd been doing a big reno within 5yrs or so. Got a single door, regular depth, fridge on top 33". Thing is amazing - I don't know the stated capacity, but I'm continually amazed at how much we can fit in it after a big shop or cook. The space is so much more useful than any French door, counter depth fridge I've ever used. The architect didn't believe us when we said we were keeping it for the reno'd kitchen - felt it was too low end but it just works great. We are going to have some filler around it so that we can put in a 36" if necessary when this one breaks. We'll also put in a freezer downstairs to hold bulk cooking or shops for holidays.

Did you say the "fridge in your bathroom"?

Lol! I had to scroll back up.. "did beach say bathroom?".. yup...

I need freezer space out the wazoo... I always like to have food on hand for whatever. I also make large portions and freeze them for lunches in smaller portions. I can't cook small :(

We go through a lot of milk and I like my iced tea, so we keep a lot of drinks in the garage, and only the ones we use constantly in the house.

Main fridge in the house, main freezer in the house, backup "el cheapo" side-by-side fridge in the garage.. and then, when my workshop/man cave gets built.. lol.. another "el cheapo" out there. That one will be beer and sodas and non perishables.

R

Yeah, I asked about that, too. sjhockeyfan. Maybe they're in mid-reno?

Yes, you read it right. We have a mid size fridge in the bathroom along with a microwave and Breville. We haven't had a kitchen for a year and a half. My husband decided to put the fridge and other appliances in because he had to pass my parents' room, downstairs bathroom and the laundry room to get his milk for his morning tea/coffee from the garage and toast his breakfast in the laundry room.

I don't think we'll ever get rid of the bathroom fridge because he loves rolling out of the shower and getting his coffee or tea along with making his breakfast etc... He also enjoys getting snacks at any time without leaving the bedroom. I always have a quiche or some single serving in the freezer that can be popped in the oven.

On the weekends, he'll binge watch TV for 12-16 hours straight and never miss any drinks or food because it's right there. Want a scotch? Ice is right there, bam. Sneak in a dessert? Milk and biscotti, bam.

The joys of track homes. Our bathroom is larger than the bedroom.

@cpartist. OMG, I can't even imagine ever feeding my dog raw if that's what I have to go through. He's passed away now but at 75lbs, there would have been no room in fridge or freezer for any human food. Your baby is only 10 lbs and he's taking up a lot of space from what you're saying. He's a doll by the way.

We have a standalone fridge and standalone freezer in the basement. When we moved here in Nov, we bought a 33" french door because the fridge that was here was tiiiiny, and a 33" is all that could fit.

The remodel has room for a full-sized fridge, but we plan to keep the 33" for a while.

I'm hoping we upgrade sooner rather than later, because we never found a good way to organize this fridge. Our old SxS was way better! And, I can't fit an open bottle of wine or Prosecco in it without moving half the stuff to the downstairs fridge!

I will be fridge shopping with an empty wine bottle.

I also miss having a dedicated meat drawer.

I don't know exactly about width yet, but I am going with true counter depth built-in.

The 27" Subzero bottom freezer I had in my last place held more, and more efficiently than the 32" wide conventional depth (but not super deep?) that was in the apartment we rented for a short time afterward. The storage layout in that one was awful. The storage layout in my sister's French Door full depth is awful.

A built in won't hold a pizza box and you have to be careful about bottles, but I wrap leftover pizza instead of putting the box in, anyway.

" I think leftovers and fresh produce are my major problem, and I end up tossing a lot of them when they reach an advanced age.

Our garage fridge is overflow (like the 13x9 of Indonesian chicken marinating for tonight's dinner), milk, beer, and wine."

MY SOUL MATE!

MINE TOO!

And thank you all for the comments on Cocoa. She's definitely our little terror, I mean terrier.

I love my CD sxs but there is just me, although it does hold a ton, and being CD, things don't get lost in the back. I have a second refrig in the basement for overflow at holidays. I'm not a "stock up shopper" except where my morning yoghurt is concerned - by a case of 12 at a time - extra in basement refrig. Other than that, I prefer to do small shopping multiple times a week. I avoid farmer's mkts as I always buy too much and end up throwing food away - very wasteful. The small mkt where I do a lot of shopping has tons of local produce and I can better control myself there.

In our 4 wk rental in the summer, I lose my mind over the refrig. It's a standard depth with freezer on top. It holds nothing and it's impossible to find anything in it. My grandsons live on cereal so there are multiple gallons of milk and never enough yoghurt space (3 eat it for breakfast and SIL for snacks). He buys 12 ears of corn at a time and it's stuffed in everywhere. And there is the wine... Did I mention no ice maker and two teens who put empty trays back in the freezer. I keep hoping it will due while I'm there and I can convince them to get one much larger. It will never die..

We have a counter depth French door fridge that works really well for our two adult, two small girls family. I homeschool and husband comes home for lunch, so we're eating every meal at home.

Right now we're sugar/dairy/grain-free. Our fridge is filled with fresh meat/poultry/ eggs/veg/fruit/almond butter; our entire diet is basically stored in the fridge right now. I shop every 5-7 days and everything fits perfectly on the shelves, but the doors are mostly empty.

I'm thinking about buying more foods in bulk from Zaycon, and there's definitely not enough room in the freezer for that. There might be a chest freezer in our future.

Ours is a 30" wide with bottom freezer. My purchase criteria were 1) Fits the existing space; 2) Bottom freezer. So far it's fine for the family of 3 with a teen son.

Most of the fridge is taken by fresh produce, a large pot with soup of the week, lunch meats (smoked turkey, ham, salami, etc.) and gallon jugs with milk and juices. Very few condiments. My salad dressing standbys are mayonnaise and olive oil, occasionally sour cream. Besides that, a bottle of ketchup, a jar of pasta sauce, two kinds of mustard, one or two kinds of cheese spreads, an occasional can of caviar or sprats, eggs, butter (a Costco pack) and that's pretty much it. DH uses no salad dressing - he likes his veggies plain. Not many leftovers either because I wouldn't cook a new meal until all the leftovers are finished.

The freezer holds mostly packs of meat, poultry and various fish. The only kinds of processed food with meat allowed here are various types of all-natural ravioli, hot dogs and sausages from Costco. Well, DS has a big pack of his beloved Hot Pockets. Pizza is rare in our home. We are pretty much a no-soda, no-chips household. I'm lucky my American DH is on the same page with me re: food!

I cook from scratch and buy a lot of staples in bulk but most of them don't require refrigeration. Grains, pasta, flour, sugar, salt, canned vegetables, dried fruit, dried seasonings, etc. A good part of the food comes from our garden like homemade jams, pickles, onions, garlic and root vegetables. The latter are stored in the unheated garage.

I love Cocoa! Omg she is adorable. I have a toy Fox terrier Mia she's 7 lbs. I have pictures saved to my tablet of the hairless terriers. I would love to have one. I use a lot of fridge and freezer space for Mia too. I feed her boneless skinless chicken breasts daily. I have a stock of raw frozen and some cooked frozen in the freezer. In the fridge is her container of shredded cooked breasts for the week. It's definitely all about the dog!

I have a huge side by side GE Profile, the delivery guys said they called it the monster. I just wanted big, I didn't realize how big it was till they couldn't get it in the house then they couldn't get it in the kitchen even with the doors off. Had to remove cabinet doors. Not a problem now since the kitchen is demolished. I hope to be able to find another that size if it ever dies. We have the old side by side in the sun room holding drinks but the freezer is full. Since we are living in the rv now which has a smaller size fridge most of the food is over flow into the big fridge in the house. I am learning a lot about compact storage and living in the rv.

Mia in her thunder shirt.

@aprilneverends
My husband is from St. Petersburg too!

As for the question at hand:
We've gotten a 30" counter depth fridge with a bottom freezer for two people, and the fridge space is PLENTY. I do wish we had more produce bins because those get full while the rest of the fridge is half-full. We live in an area with nice weather and great produce, and the grocery store is a 7 minute walk from our home, so I shop every day or two, and we eat mostly fresh food. At least, I do, and my husband does under duress. If I suddenly disappeared, he'd alternate box mac n' cheese and In 'n Out till he exploded.

Our fridge only ever really has in it:

- a solid selection of fresh fruit
- a solid selection of yogurt
- milk
- condiments (ketchup, mayo, pickle slices)
- peanut butter
- jam
- occasionally OJ
- tequila and margarita mix
- dinner fixings for the next 1-2 days (fresh meat, fresh veggies, and/or fresh herbs)
- occasionally leftovers

Supermarket eggs in the US do need to be refrigerated!

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-europeans-dont-refrigerate-eggs-2014-12

Apples too, IMO, but that's personal preference. They get mealy at room temperature.

I have a 36" counter depth french door freezer on the bottom. LOVE it!! It is actually the same fridge my sister has except counter-depth. It is the perfect size for me and my 2 boys. Like some others it is mostly filled with fresh produce, leftovers and condiments. I am guilty of buying stuff thinking OH! I'll make this, and something happens and I don't. :(

Benje!!!! PLEASE don't buy a chest freezer! There is nothing worse than unloading the entire thing onto the floor of the laundry room trying to find the X you know you have in there. I am saving for a stand up freezer, I can't wait until I have enough money. My current chest freezer I think is 7 cu.ft. Right now it is packed! I often buy steaks at hockey fundraisers, especially in the spring so we can BBQ all summer and a guy at my work has a farm so I bought a bunch of meat from him too, I buy chicken at Costco and portion it out and freeze it and I often have left over jars of chili or soup so we have a quick lunch in a pinch. The problem is my little freezer that works like a charm is probably 22 years old. I know if I buy a new one, I'll be lucky for it to last 10 years.

" I am guilty of buying stuff thinking OH! I'll make this, and something happens and I don't. :("

Aspirational grocery shopping. :D

Totally disagree about the chest freezer. Yes, they can be an organizational challenge. But they keep foods frozen better! Cold air falls. Every time you open the door in a standing freezer you lose a lot of cold air. With a chest freezer it stays put.

It's also best for food longevity to have manual defrost rather than auto. Automatic defrost works by warming the sides of the freezer. Not good for your food!

We just bought a Kitchenaid 5 door 36" wide full depth refrigerator, and it is huge. We have yet to recess it. We are a family of there and DD is only 5. The fridge looks like we just got back from a 3 month vacation.

DH is on a no mold diet because of mold exposure at out last house so I have to make everything fresh. He can not have any preservatives, nothing canned, no dairy, no gluten, low sugar so not much fruit, low starch veggies, no yeast, no alcohol, low salt, no nitrates. There are lots of restrictions. So I have to shop every other day, but the grocery store is only five minutes away.

Jillius and Aprilneverends, I just heard a podcast about the seige of St. Petersburg. Truly horrible! I think a third of the population, 1 million people, died of starvation. I can see how that would form behaviors that would be passed down to the next generation. I definitely get my food hoarding from my parents, who lived through the depression and found great security in a packed pantry and fridge.

I will be fridge shopping with an empty wine bottle.

Might I recommend an open bottle?

I avoid farmer's mkts as I always buy too much and end up throwing food away - very wasteful.

Me too! It seems wrong to live in California and not shop the various markets, but I always overdo it.I do occasionally stop at the Chino Family Farm, which grows the most beautiful, precious produce -- the best strawberries you can imagine -- but is expensive enough to keep me in line.

Iowacommute, wow, that is a very restricted list. I hope your DH is on the road to better health!

I'm another fan of the 33" bottom freezer fridge (one of the few here!). After living with 30" fridges it seems HUGE!!! Just the two of us now, so plenty of room. The door has tons of room for condiments, which leaves the rest for what is mostly fresh veggies and leftovers. Except for often having 3 gallons of milk in the fridge we shop frequently and don't stock up too much. It does fine when we have 2 people staying in the house too - then it fills up but still is perfectly adequate. I couldn't live with a side by side fridge - we are always buying flats of strawberries in the summer at the farmers market! Although unlike above we go through them all with no problem!

I use plastic bins and turntables.
I can spin a turntable and get the mustard or jelly from the back.
Bins corral those bags of frozen things nicely and hold them upright so I can get more per shelf. Could even use stacking bins if I needed it. LABEL the BINS!!!!

The shelves are organized ... leftovers and short shelf life things (yogurt, etc) are on the top shelf. and it works down to the veggie drawers at the bottom.

Family of 9, Samsung French door fridge, 36" wide x ,32" deep, no water dispenser. We use a Berkey water filter, and really appreciate the extra space the lack of cold water dispenser gives. This fridge amazes me with the amount of food it will swallow whole. Most of the time it is adequate. We do buy a lot of fresh fruits and veggies. The only drinks we store are milk and almond milk,and juice only occasionally. I shop about once a week. The freezer drawer holds a nice amount, but we also supplement with two full size freezers:an old upright, and our Frigidaire chest freezer, the largest home model they sell, which we've nicknamed our "2 cow" freezer, since that's what it holds. : )

there's only 2 of us - but we have a 42" built in SxS in the kitchen (not particularly large but it looks nice) and a GIANT Samsung french door in basement. basically we can't fit "meals" in the upstairs fridge because of the water containers (no ice / water in the door), and the condiments.

I KNOW I need to throw crap out - but.. you really DO need 4 kinds of mustard for cooking. (I wish you could get a mustard variety pack of those little packets in 1 TBS measures and keep in the pantry - I don't need an entire thing of bumpy beer, only a TBS... but now the open container is in my fridge)

And the downstairs gets leftovers, thawing stuff, and all the sports drinks / sodas we're going through spending all the time at the site sweating our butts off in 100 degree heat. the big freeze stores my crazy Costco meat purchases - but it's such a good deal to get an entire PRIME rib roast and cut into steaks...

New house will have a 36" wide dedicated fridge and a matching 36" wide freezer and I am hoping that will leave the Samsung for the dogs stuff in the laundry, as well as the sports drinks. And we really do't eat THAT much - lol - but we do try to eat most meals at home and don't do a lot of "prepared" foods

Just 3 of us, and ours is a 30" built-in (so truly counter-depth, but tall). Everything fits, but then we live a block from Safeway and two blocks from Whole Foods, so we shop "fresh" for meat and fish, and fruits and vegetables.

(Beachem, I might be able to live without a kitchen for a year and a half, what I couldn't live with is food in the bathroom LOL)

pippiep and all wine lovers - if you have no room to stand up a bottle of wine or recline one, get a plastic holder that hooks on the edge of one of the shelves. The just slide your bottle in. Enough room to put food containers under it. I think I got mine at Dollar Tree or someplace similar.

I find that holding it in my right hand and tilting it gently towards my left hand till the contents spill outwards into a very large glass, keeps my counters AND cabinets cleared of unwanted clutter... just sayin....

I have 2 ref/freez combos. One in the barn is a Whirlpool top mount frig (Freezer on top). it's 9.6 cu ft. Hold mostly water, lunches 7 snacks for the ranch hands, horse medicines, cold packs for injuries, bag of ice and the like. It's rarely ever full even during breeding season when it gets stocked with my stallion's ejaculate containers since they must be kept chilled for shipment.

In the house is a Samsung 21.6cu ft french door used by 3 peeps and 5 dogs. I shop once a week for mostly fresh foods and some staples. Did not hook up the icemaker since there is no water intake line easily accessible. Keep 2 ice cube trays going. They get refilled and ice is ready in 3 hours - enough for our needs. Leftovers get used within 2 days, generally. Freezer is a little small but it does hold enough fish for the week plus quite a bit of frozen veggies & fruit. Right now it's fairly empty because the garden fresh stuff is readily available and fresh veggies/fruit are cheap at the market in season. A neighbor supplies me with half doz. fresh farm eggs, so they sit out on the island to use during the week. (never wash fresh farm eggs) The only time the frig is full is after I shop. If we need beer for party, we put in a couple 6 packs and the rest goes into the barn frig. So far, the 21.6 cu ft works nicely after 3 years. The barn frig is 26 years old and still going strong.

Totally off-topic, but OMG, cpartist, who did you get your AHT from? I used to breed/show AHTs. So excited to see you have one!

Totally off-topic, but OMG, cpartist, who did you get your AHT from? I used to breed/show AHTs. So excited to see you have one!

She's the daughter of Perry and Evyl, from WMK. She is from the litter where they first discovered the issue with the liver but thankfully at 6 she's still quite healthy.

They are terrific dogs and she's no exception. Love her to pieces.

I love Cocoa! Omg she is adorable. I have a toy Fox terrier Mia she's 7 lbs. I have pictures saved to my tablet of the hairless terriers. I would love to have one. I use a lot of fridge and freezer space for Mia too.

Mia is adorable!

I'm so blessed to be able to have a dog since I'm actually allergic to dogs. I can tolerate non shedding dogs for several hours but after several hours, I start to get the itchy throat, eyes, etc. Not with Cocoa! So for the first time in my life I'm able to have a dog and I'm loving every minute of it. (Well maybe not when it's cold and rainy out and she needs to go out. LOL)

Exactly! I have tried to explain that to several people who are very allergic. They say oh no I tried hairless still allergic. Not so with the AHT! They are absolutely allergies free. I have a lot of allergies too, thankfully my dog is not one of them. They are wonderful animals. Sounds like both of you hit the jackpot, she has a loving family and your happy to have her in your life. Mia would love a companion, once our house is finished and we are out of the rv I may seriously consider getting an AHT.

On the topic of fridge full of condiments do you know that many of the things taking up space in the fridge don't need to be there? Like mustard, I have never put mustard in the fridge, ketchup where do you find it in restaurants on the table it doesn't have to be refrigerated. Here's a link to some condiments you can take out of the fridge. I don't buy giant size either so I can get fresh more often, one small bottle in use one backup unopened in the pantry. You can definitely buy the individual packets of condiments also I use those in the rv.

Condiments

ravencajun Zone 8b TX, no dog is absolutely hypoallergenic. There are some individuals who are still allergic to AHTs. What is an absolute is that they are the least likely breed to cause an allergic reaction, because without a coat they do not have an accumulation of dander. People generally have allergic reactions to dogs due to three causes: dander, saliva, and urine. Having a naturally hairless dog greatly reduces the dander issue. Brushing a dog's teeth can make a big difference for those who are allergic to their saliva, and hopefully one doesn't come in contact with urine very often. Most AHT breeders require an allergy trial with the affected person prior to placing a puppy/dog with them. If you know someone who is interested, the breed club can help connect them with someone willing to do an allergy trial.

2 of us here. We have a 36 inch French door with a bottom freezer and a small chest freezer in the garage. We will be moving the chest freezer to the basement sometime soon. We only dig into it a couple times a week and move things to the kitchen freezer as we have room so it won't be a big deal to go downstairs a few times a week. We want to make more room in the 3 car garage:/ not that is crammed full of stuff but one reason is that it probably runs a lot in the hot mid western summer. We shop large every two weeks or so and really need the extra freezer for the overflow. I try, really I do, to keep the fridge clean and organized. Clean I can handle well, organized, not so much.

Just me here. And cats.

Right now I have a 28 inch wide, about 16 cubic feet. I keep losing stuff in there, and it is really bad in farmer's market season -- those leafy greens aren't compact! Plus with freezer on top, and me being six feet, a lot seems to get lost. There is no room in this kitchen for anything larger. My fridge looks like the OP's bathroom one, without a nice spot for cold water / seltzer bottles. Condiments: a variety of mustard, and Indian pastes, and a couple other random things. Hard to stand up open wine bottles. Left over pizza is also a pain.

I'm building in my new home a space for a 36 inch one - I've just ordered a 33 inch with freezer on the bottom, 21 cubic feet. I'm reluctant to get a 36 just for me (although I'll have house guests) for fear that I'll buy food to fill -- 33 sounds sensible for my needs.

I do have a stand alone 5 foot tall upright freezer - great for all the meat share I pick up, and for frozen veggies/Home made sauces.

OP, my one suggestion is to keep fewer water bottles in the refrigerator. When you take one out, put in a new one -- that way you'll always have 1-2 cold ones.

My daughter mentioned that her soon-to-be-inlaws don't keep their eggs in the refrigerator, but neither of us had any idea that the US and the UK process eggs differently. We just thought perhaps eggs are like cheese -- they don't actually NEED refrigeration, but they last longer when kept cold. Our guess was wrong!

What a super cute dog! Clearly there's something to this raw-feed thing; she's clearly a superbly healthy dog. A farm girl, I've had big dogs all my life ... until we got our little boy from the shelter two years ago, and now I LOVE smaller pups. He's not tiny, of course, at 27 lbs, but he's so much easier (and cheaper) to care for, and he's right in the middle of family life all the time -- in a way that our old 80 lb girl just couldn't be.

What refrigerator do we have? A 36" wide plain old 'fridge. It's usually stuffed full:

- We do have too many condiments (yeah, at least four mustards, one of them homemade ... and let's not talk about the BBQ sauces), but that's because we're fairly adventurous cooks and collect a bunch of stuff. In the pantry we have two pantry-sized lazy susans full of condiments and BBQ sauces that aren't open yet -- we have our favorites, plus that's what we tend to buy when we travel. My homemade BBQ sauces are always canned in half-size jars, so we tend to use them up in one meal -- a much better arrangement. But I can my salsa in quarts 'cause we eat that fast. Then there's the Enchilada sauce. Am I repentant about all these condiments? Nope.

-My husband love pickles as a snack, and as a diabetic they're a guilt-free option for him -- but he always has a jar of plain dills AND a jar of hot/spicy pickles open. We also almost always have a big jar of pickled veggies for Escabeche salad -- my veggie-averse husband will gobble them up next to any main course. My old Escabeche jar was so big it broke a fridge shelf (fortunately, we were able to order a replacement off ebay).

- Over the last couple years I've been buying old Pyrex refrigerator boxes (mostly ebay, and from the price I'm paying I think everyone wants them), and they're the best for leftovers -- rectangular, they fit effectively in the refrigerator. I pack up leftovers in these little one-cup things, and I have one slide-out drawer in my fridge reserved for them ... it's easy to pull out the drawer and look down through the glass lids to see whether we're choosing soup or Chinese food. Since they're pyrex, they can go straight into the microwave, and no extra dishes are used for eating a left-over lunch. And no plastic involved.

We have a second small refrigerator out in the pantry, which keeps our "real fridge" open for "real food" -- it's actually our daughters' old dorm fridge -- it's one of the larger dorm models and has a tiny freezer, where we keep our ice cream. It's our beverage fridge, and it holds all manner of canned drinks plus the two iced tea pitchers (which are actually Blenko glass water bottles). We don't buy bottled water -- except beach trips ... just back from the Outer Banks last week ... so much fun, though we were right there where that five-year old was struck by lightning ... can't fathom what it'd be like not to bring your child home from vacation.

And we have a small chest freezer with which I have a love-hate relationship. My husband INSISTED on the chest freezer, saying it was more energy-efficient. Maybe, but I can't get to the stuff at the bottom (I'm not 5' tall, after all!), so I know there's three-year old freezer-burned stuff down there ... and right now I want a pack of chicken thighs, but I can't find it digging through the rubble, so I'm using breast tenders for chicken noodle soup -- not ideal.

I suspect we could do better with a second fridge instead of these two separate items; however, I'm not sure the freezer is going to come with us to our new house. We really need it for reduced-priced meat, not prepared freezer foods -- and I don't freeze homemade meals like I used to; not now that our kids are out of school, and I'm not quite as busy as I used to be.

And just me here -- and the cats. My dogs passed and I do miss them. But with no fence and Prince George's County, MD being a shoot a pit or rot on site county? Nuh-huh.

That said. I've been having fridge dilemmas myself, so this is timely. My full-sized freezer crapped out and I'm working with an old, Craig's List standard, top-freezer fridge.

I binge cook and freeze every 6 to 7 months, so this has put a severe cramp in my thaw-and-eat meals. But that would also mean I'd have to cook again. Anyway. I have condiments in my fridge, too. Some I actually use. Milk for my espresso and cats. The crisper drawer for Reese's cups. The door holds the olive oil for my steak. Ok, I need 3 things.

I always wanted a CD fridge, but since I moved my fridge to the other side of the door into the mudroom, I don't need it. I am thinking tall, though. Wide just takes up too much space. I love it in the mudroom, BTW.

I do need some kind of a freezer, though, for my life-style. Wine doesn't need cold (why refrigerate wine when you can drink red?) so that's not a problem. Just the darned effort to cook and freeze.

In the meanwhile, I have a full-sized freezer in my mudroom with a crapped out compressor. Hey! Maybe until I can get it moved, I'll take the door off and use it for shelves.

I had a chest freezer once. Until it became unplugged and I didn't notice for probably a month. I didn't even open it. Just had DH take it out and throw it away. I didn't know what was in the bottom to begin with, so I wasn't missing anything. And oh, the new space I had in the dining room!

I do love my lazy susans and bins in the fridge. I could do it in the freezer, too.

Exactly! I have tried to explain that to several people who are very allergic. They say oh no I tried hairless still allergic. Not so with the AHT! They are absolutely allergies free.

Actually there are also some people who are also allergic to the AHT. If you have truly severe allergies to dogs so that even the saliva bothers you, I think you'd have more of a problem with even the AHT.

For me, I'm more allergic to the fur, although I did break out in hives once where a Lab licked me. But that for me was an anomaly. My allergies tend to be more airborne.

One thing some of us AHT owners do is have the allergic person come visit us for an "allergy test" to see how they react to the AHT. I did that before getting Cocoa. In fact, after I did the allergy test, our breeder allowed us to take one of her dogs home for the weekend to make sure my allergy wouldn't kick up after an extended period. (Cheryl don't fall off your chair hearing that KP allowed me to take the dog for the weekend.) At the time she was debating which of two to give up, Cocoa or her sister and she gave us Cocoa. So glad I wasn't allergic.

In fact my daughter was staying with us that weekend and my DH had insisted he didn't want a dog, didn't like dogs etc. We left DH home alone with Cocoa one day while we went shopping. When we came home, the football game was on, and both my DH and Cocoa were asleep. Cocoa was sleeping on top of DH on the couch. So much for him not wanting a dog. ;) And they've been best friends ever since. In fact now DH jokes that he can't ever leave me because he wouldn't want to give up the dog. LOL.

After reading this thread I had to do a fridge count!

We have a 36" french door fridge in the kitchen. Our old top freezer mount fridge in the garage, a small stand up freezer in the garage. 2 undercounter fridges in the basement kitchenette. In the Kennel we have our old side by side, an apartment sized fridge in the club room kitchen and a big chest freezer in the office. Oh, and a small wine fridge in the dining room. Guess I need to stop wondering why our power bill is so high!

I am allergic to dogs when they're dirty. Other than that, not at all.
I'm always allergic to my cats.
God Bless the people who invented Clariton-D. Changed our lives.

@Annette I think you win on fridge count.

@mrspete I actually need all those bottles in the fridge at the same time. Since being ill 3 yrs ago, I've forced myself to drink 2 liters (2 bottles) a day and same with DH.

How I make this happen is by drinking one and when it stops being cold enough 15 mins later, I switch out to another bottle while the first one gets cooled in the fridge.

I rotate thru all 6 bottles within two hours. If I'm really diligent about drinking consistently then sometimes the bottles don't get cold fast enough so I'll throw the used one back into the freezer instead and add that to the rotation.

I can only drink water if it's very cold.

Our current house has a very small footprint for a fridge so I have a 21cuft French door because a whole-width door would block the entire hallway. The builders of the house, which was built in 1982 and 20 miles from a grocery store, shoulda known better than to have a tiny space that couldn't be modified grrr. So in the laundry I have a very old upright freezer (Gibson) for mostly meats, a small beverage fridge in the dining room, and a dorm/beer fridge in the garage (used to be in my tack room for horse meds). If there was a way to freeze lettuce, I would've done it to avoid having to go to town so often (and sorry, I have a black thumb so when I tried growing lettuce inside, several types of lettuce died in vain).

My "new" house, built in 1970 so even older, has a HUGE space for a fridge and is only a mile away from the nearest grocery store, go figure. But it has half the total sqft for the house so I now have only one do-it-all fridge. A 36" 28cuft French door for only 2 people was my knee-jerk "I NEED a big fridge" reaction to the formerly miserly fridge space. It has a separate drawer for beverages, a door-in-door so DH can quickly get at his stuff that otherwise he pokes around forever to get out, and outside water and ice dispenser since it's Phoenix. The fridge shelves fold so I can stand up an open bottle of wine; I tried some caps that are supposed to allow laying down but I don't think they're meant to work with wine sloshing back and forth as the drawer is opened DAMHIK!

Well, I don't know how many will read this far but thanks for letting me vent to other TKO's who understand these things lol!

We are planning for a 30" Thermador column Fridge and 24" column Freezer in the Kitchen, a 32" Electrolux All Fridge for the pantry (overflow/extra drinks/produce) and then a deep freezer for the garage. We have 3 growing boys and buy meat from local farms (soon will be our own farm) and need place to store. Oh, and a undercounter dual zone wine fridge.

Right now, while we are building, we have a small, cheap fridge/top freezer unit that is constantly overflowing, never can find anything and hardly any freezer space (gasp! no ice maker either)....we are quite excited for our options in the near future!

We have 30" Thermador columns. It is the first time we haven't needed our extra old fridge in the basement. I kept it for a year to make sure it wasn't needed for the holidays or extra drinks- not once! The columns are perfect!

I am guilty of having all those "unnecessary" condiments filling up the door shelves. We do use them, though -- none ever get tossed for being too old or ignored and they keep up from being bored with our veggie-heavy diet. But the rest of the 30" is packed also, with the fridge full of lots of fresh fruit and veggies (leafy greens do take up a lot of space, and right now there is a peck & 1/2 of Wealthy apples and a whole pork loin waiting to be sliced up and frozen), and things bought on sale/stocked up, The freezer and 5cf chest freezer in the basement is full of a large variety of frozen veggies and again, meats/seafood portioned out, veggie burgers, ice cream, bread etc, again all bought on sale with coupons - still have a gallon bag of tiny tomatoes from last fall waiting to be made into chutney or jam there, as an example.

I was shocked when I replaced my previous 30" fridge to find that although the advertised CF was larger, the usable CF was noticeably less in both the fridge and freezer sections of the new unit.

How I make this happen is by drinking one and when it stops being
cold enough 15 mins later, I switch out to another bottle while the
first one gets cooled in the fridge.

Since your fridge space /special needs are conflicting, I'll tell you about a product I saw last night on TV -- it was on a similar-to-Shark-Tank show:

https://www.amazon.com/SpinChill-SC-001-Portable-Drink-Chiller/dp/B00H57SULM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470345741&sr=8-1&keywords=spinchill

I'm thinking of ordering one for my husband for Christmas. When we travel or just go fishing, we always take a cooler of drinks; this would allow us to take only a 6-pack cooler full of ice ... and cool individual drinks on an "as needed" basis. They tested it on the show (and measured the temperature); they could bring a drink down to 30-something degrees in 1 minute.

cooling a drink in seconds has been done for ages.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ice-Cold-Beer-In-20-Seconds/

http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-to-freeze-water-in-about-half-a-second-512869494

We use to do this as kids - which was way last century!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-GQk8Q96PY

http://lifehacker.com/221974/chill-a-coke-in-2-minutes

The military and EMS also use packs that can instantly cool down anything.

" I think leftovers and fresh produce are my major problem, and I end up tossing a lot of them when they reach an advanced age.

Our garage fridge is overflow ..... ... ... milk, beer, and wine."

Oh, me too !! Another Soul Mate! Apparently you are very popular, lol! We have a wine fridge but the beer and tonic mix is outside. White wine is also in the garage.

Cpartist, we have a terror too. A 6 lb Yorkie, the entire house is designed around him. He will even get his own window in the new kitchen!! We tried the raw diet for a while too. It didn't help the other dog who has skin issues so we now use other foods (some fresh) which saves fridge space.

We have a Samsung 4 door - it holds a lot and is fairly easy to organize. I let DH do it as he wants things a certain way. I went LCHF (low carb high fat) so the only stuff I have in there is butter, lettuce, cheese, eggs, a few veggies and berries, and protein items. If you buy a big tub of plain greek yogurt and get rid of all those cups you'll do yourself a favor by saving space and your kids a favor by dumping the sugar loaded ones. You can add your own goodies to plain yogurt. Oh, they will kick and scream and cry at first. There are a bunch of condiments in ours too - some are old. Every so often I purge them out. DH loves to collect hot sauces.

I don't buy very many convenience foods - only to feed the teenager on really hectic nights - all those boxes take up freezer and fridge space. I have zero soda most of the time - if there is any it's more like drink mixers or once in a while I will buy the kid a couple for a treat or to take to the beach.

It's odd, isn't it Beachem I personally prefer all of my water to be at room temperature and it has to be a super hot day before I can stand cold water.

For several years I had a very small fridge it was efficient in that it was always packed with food but it was like doing a puzzle to get things in and out. Now I have fridge on top freezer on bottom-love that configuration. It is still a relatively small fridge but it is more than enough for two people

Once a month I heartlessly go through my refrigerator and clean out everything. Many of the condiments can be open for longer than a month-no issue-but a lot of other things tend to get shoved towards the back of the fridge and need to be tossed. Once I started this monthly cleaning routine I found that there was space in the fridge except before a major dinner with friends or family. I also found that I was so appalled at the waste that I was generating that I am now a much more efficient meal planner.

I agree with the posters who have the sxs, it seems like they ought to be great but in fact they are a horrible waste of space. The one thing I never understood about the configuration is why don't they have rollout drawers on Blum full extension glides extra heavy duty, like we use in our lower cabinets, that way you'd be able to really get stuff out of the back of those long narrow shelves. Instead they just have typical refrigerator plastic drawers that can only hold so much weight.

@practigal That's funny about your water temp vs mine. My husband used to drink room temperature too but he's now hooked on super cold since he keeps taking my drinks.

He started bringing in bottled water to the office and he puts it in the freezer. The whole office makes fun of him for that.

I think my problem is that I can taste everything in the water at room temp. It's more muted when cold. Funny enough, the only tap water I'll drink at room temp is New York City.

Our tap water here is horrible. I can taste all the chloromine and other chemicals in it.

I drink the Arrowhead sparkling water.