Thanks jgopp. All good points but I'm wondering if drawers can perhaps be packed almost twice as efficiently as shelves. Look at all the space above containers in a full-sized refrigerator, and also look at the space required to allow access to the back of the shelves.

We're doing an unfitted (freestanding cabinets) kitchen, so we aren't locking ourselves into anything that can't easily be changed.

I kind of look at the refrigerators the way I look at garage space. There's the amount of space one actually needs and then there's amount of space one can fill up with stuff.

That said, I don't necessarily want to be a pioneer in this regard.

Efficiency is something a lot of people consider. I will tell you my FP dishdrawers in the brochure look like you can jam a whole bunch of stuff in there perfectly and run a full load. But in reality it can't. I have multiple sized plates and cups and bowls. It is going to be the same with food items, not everything is going to be beautiful packed in a square. I'm not too vocal on the forum on being against certain things, but this is something I think you should not do. I strongly believe you will be unhappy with this set up in the long run.

One thing to consider is the proportion of your total wealth that your house represents. Does the bank own the greatest portion? If so, can you cover that easily? Will the cost of a new kitchen set you back if life gets weird and you have to sell immediately? Since you're talking Perlick, you may be in the category of people who aren't worried about the price they get if they have to sell their houses in an emergency. If that's true, go ahead if it makes sense to you. If not, you'll be better off with a recognizably shaped fridge.

Some people do use only undercounter refrigeration, but that tends to be in high design, minimalist spaces, where convention is out the window anyway. Perlick is known for being quiet. I have Marvel, which is not quiet. Not bad for a working kitchen, but not quiet. I don't know about the other brands, but you can stand up most bottles of wine, even opened, and big pop bottles, in the bottom drawer. Some brands have much shallower drawers. I actually think you could manage for two people, no entertaining, no buying a week's worth at a time, in four drawers/48", especially if you live where you can keep fruit and root vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots, etc.) out of the fridge. That depends on the configuration, however. Will at least one drawer be a freezer? Two? I'm not sure that 24" is enough for refrigeration.

If you go through enough chilled beverages to need a separate unit in the dining room (other than wine storage, or similar), you probably can't make it on just the 48". Also, keep in mind that you'll have to stack things, and there will be a lot of shifting things around to find them. Plus, heavy goes on the bottom. Example: Recently, I made a large dish of enchiladas. They don't do as well in containers, so I covered the baking dish and put it on the bottom of a drawer. I also bought bought vegetables to make soup, so had celery, leeks and carrots on top of it, which had to be shifted to get the dish out to put together lunch then shifted to put it back. There are some bottles of ale in the bottom drawer. Vegetables live on top of them. Stuff like that. It's fine for my secondary fridge, which is used for transitioning projects, ale, and stuff I need at the stove. It could get really old if that's all there were, however. I love my fridge drawers, but I also love the glass shelves and great lighting in my Miele all fridge that allow me to see and get at everything easily.

The people who have done it are happy enough with it, but, again, they tend to be style first kinds of people. It's a no-go for function first.

plllog (sorry if I mispronounced your name), thanks for the thoughtful reply. Because of how much we stand to gain in terms of counterspace, light and openness, cost really isn't the issue in this decision. (My wife would faint if she heard me say that. But, my thriftiness has enabled us to pay off the house and do our remodel without dipping into our savings.)

In terms of style, we aren't looking for a lowest common denominator type of design; we're going for the put-a-smile-on-your-face kind of kitchen. And we're leaning towards the Perlick, which is half refrigerator and half freezer. The idea of an extra beverage refrigerator is just an option in case the 48" Perlick isn't big enough by itself. Hopefully, our friends will get in the habit of bringing an additional cold six pack and an extra bottle of chilled white when they come over to visit and we'll never need the extra refrigerator.

I just looked it up, and the refrigerator/freezer in our motorhome is 6.3 cubic feet. We're comfortable with that amount of space for a week's worth of food. Of course, we don't take 87 bottles of salad dressing with us when we go camping. On the other hand, when we're at home it wouldn't kill us to buy a bit less and eat every bit of what we buy.

koert your writing sounds like mine: habits, needs, even your attitude toward the tradeoff between countertop and money.

I have a 30"wide refrigerator drawer unit. We got it so that we could triple or quadruple the useable counter space in a tiny kitchen. People love it. We are happy too, but not in love with it. No complaints, just fine.

We got the fridge only, so that there would be more useable storage inside the drawers. Any fridgefreezer combination has less room inside because of the insulated separator panel between the two compartments and the room needed for the separate cooling circuits and stuff.

In a closet we have a 24"w fridge/freezer. Now, we often buy too much of everything without worry about where to store it. It's Parkinson's Law: purchasing of green produce expands to fill the fridge capacity available. The fridge/freezer is not far away.

If we had a chest freezer in the storage room we would be buying to fill that too. Friends who are hunters have asked us if we have room for their catches. (Portions thereof).

New habits develop when you have deep drawers as your fridge. No big deal.

Hth.

"Remember aunt Enda and her big cheese platter? That baby is gonna need a home til it's time for the party." jgopp love that comment !

I love the look of refridgerator drawers.The openness it allows you is really nice but think about what kind of cooking you do. I make large pots of soup and beans, macaroni sauce which take up a lot of room. Also from what I have read the freezer/fridge combos don't work as well as all freezer/all fridge options.
Again I agree w/ jgopp "My motto on fridges is: it is better to have the space and not use it, than to not have the space and need it, even once."

plllog: Do you have a Miele all fridge and all freezer side by side ? I really like that idea of a glass door on the fridge...no room right now but maybe in the future.

We have a set of fridge/freezer drawers, used to supplement our regular refrigerator. A beverage fridge would be a good idea, as you cannot stand up a bottle of wine (or anything that height) in the SubZero drawer; it's too shallow. I think we had to take off the plastic cover, too, even to fit beer bottles standing up.

We are a family of four, including teenagers, so no way could we get by with only the drawers, but I like them for how we use them. (They are across the room from the other refrigerator, and underneath the microwave, so we store snacks, lunch supplies, and anything microwaveable in them.)

I figured out a few more search terms and found the following threads on this topic:

ONLY an undercounter refrigerator?
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/smallerhomes/msg0917265912198.html

Refrigerator/Freezer Drawers - Only ?????
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0907435829553.html

Drawer Refrigerators? Have them? Like them?
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0423271532414.html

Refrigerator size - downsizing?
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/smallerhomes/msg0815470832352.html

Undercounter freezer - which one?
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg0916280931109.html

*Usable* Freezer Space in Undercounter Fridge/Freezer Units
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg0401235621536.html

Life is very different in a motorhome. If you go for a few months at a time, and stay in for a few days at a time, and only go shopping every third or fourth day maximum, etc., etc., it might be comparable. I've done a month at a time for breakfasts, many lunches and many dinners with just an Oscar, a bear box and a bag of staples, but buying a single tomato at time is a camping thing, not real life.

I think having only 24" of undercounter fresh food storage is really chancy. If you had a full sized fridge in a garage or something, it would be fine, but a nice new kitchen should be a pleasure rather than a hardship.

ERF, yes, I have 30" Miele all fridge and all freezer. The fridge has glass shelves and clear plastic drawers, the freezer has wire shelves and drawers. Neither has glass doors. With glass door you have make the inside look pretty, which I often try to do but also often fail at. Additionally, you don't get any on the door storage, so have more places on the shelves where you have to move things to get at other things. Love the Mieles.

Just a quick anecdote: we sublet an apartment for a month during the worst of our house renovation. The tenant had an undercounter refrigerator (not drawers) only. Doing deep squats to get anything in or out of that fridge got real old, real fast.

Koert,

We decided to do an all-fridge (either Liebherr 24" or Miele 30"). and get an all freezer under couner freezer from SZ. I agree with Davidro on the combo unit taking a lot of space for the insulation and extra compressor if your unit has that. Also our main requirement was refrigerator space for fruits/ produce that can be stored in a regulated temprature. We feel this separation is useful compromise for maximizing counter space and ergonomic refrigerator set up.

I have to laugh at what most people consider minimum tolerable sizes for a fridge. We live happily on a 450 sqft houseboat and are considering moving UP in volume to a drawer fridge. :) Our solution is to buy the groceries we want with no regard to price. You'd be amazed at how much delice and beautiful salami you can fit in 3sqft.