We have the French door model. It is the same as the single except that the single holds more in the doors. We have plenty of room in our fridge and we are Costco shoppers. We are empty nesters with three kids at home sometimes. A 36" over-under uses space very efficiently. Whether it is enough room for you depends in how you shop. I think that is always the case. The freezer is small, but manageable.

Question for you though. If you thought the French door model had heavy doors, why do you think the single would be better? I don't find the doors in the FD heavy.

Had a 36 with bottom freezer for 5 years . . . Loved it. Putting the same one in our new house.

SZ just came out with a 42 FD, looks to be about the same price as the 36.

Do you mean single door all fridge, or non-French door over/under? I grew up with the latter. It's plenty big for a good sized family and most entertaining. My folks did keep a small, '50's era fridge in the garage that had a few odds and ends and provided some overflow, for occasions with several dozen guests. It would get the giant molded salad on the tray that lived bungeed to the bottom of the shelf in the cabinet over an oven because it was the only place big enough to store it. Nearly 30" in diameter? So, for 30-50 guests, I'd guess you'd want the garage fridge. Also if you keep a lot of beers and sodas cold. For entertaining less than 25, you can manage it in a 36" SZ alone, with an ice cooler for said drinks, unless it's cluttered with a lot of stuff from general family life. Generally, it's best to clear out the fridge before starting the cooking for mobs. For entertaining less than a dozen, no sweat, period. If you were talking all fridge, that's probably all you need.

thanks all for the responses. i thought it would be ok but wanted some assurance. i don't buy a ton of groceries at once. i buy for a few days at a time. it's just that we are going from an LG SxS non counter depth and the door shelves are huge! we store so much there including loads of vitamin bottles, condiments, cooking wine, those big bottles of fish sauce, a huge bottle of margarita mix on the bottom shelf, etc. and it's a very "out of sight" kind of set up so they're not in the way when you don't need them. i know this won't be possible with the SZ but it will be nice to have the room for platters etc. and not have things disappear to the back depths.

plllog, i meant the single door fridge w/bottom freezer.

nycbluedevil, no idea why i felt the french door was so heavy. we were pretty much set on an FD due to clearance but i felt opening both doors (which i know we will do everytime we go to the fridge) was very cumbersome. maybe because i was comparing it to the electrolux icon counter depth model we were looking at? not sure, but we both agreed that the single door was easier to handle.

I'm probably going with the Integrated 36" SZ with two drawers on the bottom. I know it's new-ish. Anyone commenting on that one, or just the traditional built in one?

You mentioned putting an extra unit the garage. Have you considered the option of having a 36" All-Refrigerator in the house, and a freezer elsewhere?

I can't find them here but, when researching built in refrigerator/freezer sizes a common theme I kept seeing was that people who went with 42" wish they could have gone with a 48" one instead.

We have the SZ 36" single door with bottom freezer. We bought it because the refrigerator storage space was larger than most other brands - larger even than many 42". I've been pleasantly surprised that we don't need a second full size refrigerator - we do have a beverage refrigerator in the bar downstairs for temporary overflow- but the size of the refrigerator storage comes at a cost to storage in the bottom freezer. It is small and so we do have a full size freezer in the basement as well and it is much needed.
We really love the SZ, especially with the paneled doors.