As regular readers know a few weeks ago I became a homeowner! My new house is super cute and I love a ton, but maybe the worst feature was the stinky old fridge that it came with. For some reason the previous owners put an open container of floor cleaner inside of it. The smell was overwhelming and infected everything that went inside of the fridge and freezer. It is hard to say why someone would do something so foul to the people you are selling a house to, maybe they hated us or hoped that we would die from the chemicals leeching into our food from the nastiness and they could take back the house. Regardless, the old fridge stank, was rusted, didn’t make ice (although it tried to loudly every hour), was small, and didn’t light up for late night snacks. Lucky for me I have the greatest Mom in the world who decided to use her tax refund to get me a new fridge as a house warming gift! And I have a president Obama who not only gave me money to buy my house but also gave me a tax credit to buy a new energy efficient fridge.
I struggled with lots of questions when buying my first appliance. I only knew that I wanted the refrigerator to make ice on its own (luxury) and filter water because ours doesn’t taste very good. After some preliminary research I found that Maytag was out and Kenmore and GE are supposedly the best. I decided to get white instead of stainless because it is way cheaper. I posted on the ppk asking people about their refrigerators and it seemed that the consensus was that the french door style with the freezer on the bottom was the favorite; the side by sides don’t have nearly as much room.
The problem was, I couldn’t find a resonably priced french door fridge that had the water on the door like I so desired. Finally after weeks of searching I went to Sears and found the Kenmore Elite. It was perfect. It even has a door alarm so if the beagles get into the fridge I will know about it! The only problem was that it was a half an inch too big for the spot! After measuring 18 times I finally decided I would buy the fridge and saw off the edge of the counter rather than getting a much smaller fridge. Everyone thought I was crazy. Especially the guy that sold me the fridge. He made it very clear that he didn’t “recomend that I saw off the counter”. I assured him that I would not hold him responsible and bought a fridge that I knew wouldn’t fit. It would take a couple of days to show up so we would have time to rent a saw and do the job.
Sawing off the edge went pretty well, we did chip the finish but hopefully we will be able to fix it. I measured the width one more time and knew we had plenty of room. Then the refrigerator men showed up with the new white behemoth. I watched with my fingers crossed and Miss Willow barking up a storm as it slid in… and then wouldn’t fit because of the cabinet! I measured the width at the counter but not at the top! It was like 1/16th too small. The fridge guys apologized and left. We decided to try and take off the baseboard hoping that that would free up the centimeters we needed. It was really stuck on there and we don’t know anything about this kind of stuff but Mr. Smurf (becoming Handy Smurf?) finally got it off and the fridge slid perfectly in to its place of honor. It is so beautiful, like a five thousand pound ipod that makes ice. Neither of us every would have guessed we would become so enamored with an appliance. I have truly become an American Consumer like I never thought I would. It has space for everything and more. In the old fridge when you removed something from the freezer everything came toppling out because it was so packed! Now every container of nuts has a spot and those 25 pound bags of tater tots will slip right in. The crispers are clear so you can the vegetables every time you open the door even though they are in their humidity controlled drawers. And there is a tempeh and tofu drawer! Actually, there is so much room that I am kind of confused with what all to put in it, with all of my condiments on the door and everything else in its drawers there is a lot of room for beer and large cakes!I’m so happy! Thanks Mom!