The refrigerator question

The refrigerator is generating much of my kitchen planning angst.

Where to put it is fairly clear – in front right corner by the door. It has to be on the right wall, because the left is too shallow; it has to be by the door because otherwise it would stick out and block the window.

It’s got to be counter-depth or I’ll lose too much of the closet behind it.

But how big should it be? A full-size counter-depth side-by-side, 35 inches wide? Or something less enormous, like a 24 inch wide compact model?

I use my freezer much more than I use my fridge. I shop for fresh food on my walk home from the subway, and I tend to buy only as much as I plan to cook or eat that day or the next morning. My fridge holds a few lonely containers of yogurt, milk, condiments, and iced tea. My freezer is packed with leftovers, snacks, soup, veggies, rice, boca burgers, etc. etc. Though as my mother points out, you can't entertain guests as a working gal without doing a lot of cooking and prep the day before - the fridge has to be adequate when you need it.

I will never use a water dispenser (cold tap is cold enough for me), and an ice maker is just a waste of space (alone, I never use ice; entertaining, I can just pick up a bag in the liquor store).

I was feeling compelled to put in a full-sized fridge because I’m from suburbia and “real” kitchens have normal fridges; I associate compact with dorm-room. But the plurality of responses to my GardenWeb post asking about layout said “get a smaller fridge already!” or words to that effect.

So I’ve been persuaded to go with a counter-depth, 24" wide fridge (and reclaim twelve more inches of counter space! woohoo!). I've looked at pretty much all of them (there aren't that many), in person or online.

I want it to be tall - I have 8.5 foot ceilings, if I'm going to compromise on width I should get more height. And I want to maximize freezer capacity, because I use the freezer much more than the fridge. Oh, and I'd rather not pay $4000 for it, as I'm not made of money.

Here's my next problem: all ones I like best don't come trim-panel. And it's very important to me to have the fridge disappear into the line of cabinets. I know that you can get a custom trim-panel mounting kit from Frigo - they say they can make them for any appliance - but what if it doesn't have a totally flat front? What if it's a little curvy and bowed, like this LG or this GE? Fitting trim panels to them looks like it would be a lot more involved (though maybe not - anyone know?).

And then I got to wondering - can wood veneer be applied to metal? Wood veneer comes in thin flexible sheets - it's been used on curvy furniture for centuries. Can it be bonded to the door and exposed side of a fridge? Or would it not work for some reason? Or look stupid? It wouldn’t technically match the cabinets, as they’ve got raised moldings etc.; but it might coordinate – especially if I splurged on a Stickley veneer inlay.

Or should I give it up and just pick one of the suboptimal panel-ready models? (Suboptimal because they're either twice as expensive, or have dollhouse-sized freezers.)

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