I know a couple of people who have the Frigidaire all refrigerator units and they have coupled it with the upright freezer. They have been extremely happy with the arrangement, although personally I prefer a manual defrost freezer because they preserve food much, much better. One friend bought an under counter ice machine and loves that as well. We have a Frigidaire all refrigerator unit in our barn and it has been wonderful. I have actually stored bushels of apples in there that were awaiting processing. Kept them in prime shape for a few months because the day the apples were delivered in October I fell and broke my ribs. I just made them into applesauce and canned them last week. Superb applesauce. It has also come in handy for storing large kettles of stock that I've made and ended up popping it in there kettle and all until the next day. We also have freezers....all manual defrost. The chest freezers are more efficient and hold colder temps a bit better than the upright. I use the upright freezer mainly to hold normal supplies of things in the house that I will be using fairly quickly and to store grain. (I grind my own flour and bake breads, etc.) I plan what meat I will be cooking and bring a weeks supply into the upright from the chest freezers. So, like you, I don't use the freezers that come with refrigerators for much....usually only for ice and to store those reusable "ice things" you freeze for coolers, because in my opinion they just don't keep food very well. They heat up and cool down too much while defrosting. I was glad to see this thread as we are building a house and I have been debating whether to have just an all refrigerator unit in the kitchen. I currently have a refrigerator with a bottom freezer that I like as well, with a good ice maker. (I plan to have two refrigerators in the house, though the second one will be located in a pantry type area). I will also keep the upright freezer convenient as well. You MAY want to consider going with a slightly wider refrigerator unit than 24". I know you said you have other larger ones, but you may not want to have to go to a basement for your turkey or larger items at some point. You may also evolve with what you cook as time goes on and you may wish you had ever so slightly more width. I find when things aren't convenient things don't get made very often, even if initially you don't think it would bother you. (Been there, done that). I think your ideas are great. This type of thinking isn't McMansion at all. It's called being smart and storing food and cooking healthy yummy meals, like people used to. It's called not being dependant on grocery stores for your needs. With today's energy efficient appliances, they don't cost much to run at all, and in the event of a disaster, you have food! We have a back up generator and also solar panels for power, so we can keep them going if the grid goes down. I'm anxious to see what you decide and how you change your kitchen. I'm almost at my kitchen design phase. Sandy

The Cat From Hell mostly stays in the basement because she doesn't like me, so I don't find cat hair in the food, I just find it on Ashley's pillow and since it isn't my pillow, I don't care. WonderWeiner always slept with me, but I was never covered with dog hair. he got brushed every day and I vacumned regularly, so I'm assuming that kept it to a minimum. Plus doxies don't really shed much. Elery's chihuahua sheds more than any other dog I've ever seen, so i'm always vacumning up after he goes but I guess that doesn't really bother me either. I always clean my counters before and after food prep, because that's how I've always done it, it has nothing to do with pet hair. i don't mind finding egg shells or bones, I do dislike finding a bug in something but it doesn't weird me out, I mostly just pick it out. Since I know about the allowable percentage of particulate matter in commercially packaged food, I know that everything we buy at the grocery has bugs or rodent hair or droppings or fingernail clippings or dirt or leaves and twigs or SOMETHING in it. Add the fact that I'm a farm girl and it just doesn't bother me. Of course, the parasites in the fish don't bother me either, as long as they are cooked. Oh, and I also know that lobster IS a bug, but I eat them anyway. Annie

Wow, so many tips and ideas, thanks everybody. Tomorrow, when I have more time, I'm going to read over these again more slowly and start a list of pros and cons. Jodi, I'll take you up on that kind offer, but it'll be Friday at the soonest. I'm so tired of the white appliances, I need a change, so I'm really leaning towards a black texture at this point, with a bottom freezer, possibly stainless trim just to break up the big block of black. (Say that 3 times!) Bottom freezers do come with ice-makers, right? See how much homework I still have to do?? Hayjud, if I trusted Woody to keep us in ice, there would be so much frozen water in the bottom of the freezer! Men are too sloppy IMO, for that job. Mine is, anyway. And yes, I want all the new appliances to match as much as possible. The stove and micro especially, they will need to be the same brand so the handles and features match. Thanks again, you have all been so helpful to me.

We have a Kitchenaid 15" with built in pump. We bought it from Build.com because they offered an 8 year warranty for an additional fee, which was less expensive and a longer warranty than I could find elsewhere. DH installed it bc there was already existing electrical and a drain bc previous owner had an old broken one in the same spot when we moved in. If you need a drain and electrical installed, probably hire an installer or pay for the install services when you buy the machine. You need to clean it about once or twice a year with a cleaning solution, change the filter when it says to, and when you vacuum, just do a quick sweep of the grill area, like the bottom of a fridge to remove any dust or dog hair build up. We've had this one for about 3 years with no problems. It makes small clear ice cubes. Ours is not very loud and we are in an open concept kitchen/dining/family room. The only time I can hear it is if everyone is in bed and the whole house is quiet, and I'm sitting near it at the dining table; then I can hear the ice dropping. It's true that it's not energy efficient at all; it's a luxury item. We use ours extensively for ourselves, parties, sports bottles, and ice chests for baseball/tennis/cross country meets, picnics, to chill wine quickly, and such. I have read/heard that if you're not going to use it a lot, it's not really worth it, but we use ours heavily.