When the POs remodeled the kitchen, they used Lowes. I found this out thanks to another issue I’m currently chasing down. It seems the POs just went in and said “here’s some money, update this (probably) 25-30 year old kitchen.” As such, a lot of default stuff is in our kitchen. None of it is terrible, but like the rather meh reverse osmosis system we just replaced, over time we will probably upgrade and change things to make the space more useful.
Case in point: the refrigerator. It’s a GE Profile side-by-side in black, a perfectly nice fridge. The problem is the door handles. They are very big, and because it’s a side-by-side and in a corner, you can’t actually open the right-hand door completely. This means you can’t get the drawers completely open, reaching stuff in the back is hard (let’s not talk about how much food has gone bad), and it’s just a thing that annoys us in general.
Back in July, we were at a nearby Home Despot and spent serious time looking at the refrigerator offerings, wondering if we should replace the GE. While we decided to hold off, we did figure out what our “dream fridge” was: a nice LG French Door unit. Not only does it have smaller main handles, it is designed so that you can get the drawers open easily with the main doors at just ninety degrees. It also has an easily accessible (and thus easy to keep clean) ice/water dispenser, a roomy bottom freezer with sliding level sections, and best of all, a door within the door so things like milk and butter can be taken out quickly. About the only dumb thing is that the fridge has the ability to talk to a smart phone, but being an LG fridge it will only work on an Android thingy. Still, I really wouldn’t want a self-aware fridge telling me I need to eat more eggs and use up the whipped cream cheese by tomorrow.
Over the next couple of months, we read reviews of the LG and compared it to others we’d seen and still dreamed of its frosty goodness, yet we obstinately suffered through the annoyances of the GE–squatting and twisting to get food for the boys each morning; finding another head of lettuce that had languished forgotten and hidden in the bottom back; trying to squirm and shuffle things about to fit in a fresh plate of lemon squares.
Then last week, Agent Smith was at Lowes and noticed the LG was on sale. I did some research and discovered that because it’s the end of the year, appliances everywhere are on sale. Home Despot, Lowes, Sears, even the independents all have appliances on sale for 40% off. Just like cars at dealerships, the old models need to go so the new ones can come in. We had no clue appliances were on such a schedule.
So Friday we put in our order and today, our new, oh-so-sexy fridge arrived. The delivery guys were fast and efficient, moving the old fridge out and into the garage, as it will be rehomed to a place where it will fit in, be fully functional and thus be loved greatly. (And for those wondering why we don’t just keep it to use in the garage or pantry–we already have fridges in both those spaces that actually function very well and make use of their allotted space in a rational manner.) They then hooked up the existing water line and moved the new guy into place.
I think the Roo and Crotch Frog (pictured hanging off the side in pic 1, as the front of most stainless steel fridges–including Mr. Freeze here–aren’t magnetic) approve of the change in venue.
Here are some action shots. The second image is of the quick entry door–basically a mini fridge where we have butter, juices, milk, and whatever else we’ll eventually store in that section. Next we see the fridge and freezer compartments fully open. (You can still get to the stuff in the quick entry section, but as you can see, there’s actually plastic sectionals and a pop-out door in place to help insulate the rest of the fridge from chill loss when you open that section.)
We’re quite happy with Mr. Freeze as Agent Smith is now calling it. We’re also starting to ponder a possible replacement for the GE dishwasher that behaves in a stupider-than-usual manner ninety percent of the time.