I had the large Amana, badged Maytag and loved it. I now have a smaller F & P and like it. I find it the most convenient refrig to use.

Thanks for the info, eandhl. I'm trying to pick out appliances for a new house we are going to be building.

I have the Kitchenaid counterdepth and I'm very happy with it. It's very quiet, keeps the food cold, and doesn't get in the way. I love not having to kneel in front of the bottom shelves pleading with the fridge goddess to show me where the food is. Having the freezer on the bottom just makes so much sense.

Amana 2002 model. Would like to replace it with a Liebherr, which means the Amana will probably never break, LOL!

Thank you all for your responses! I'll have to look at the F&P, Kitchenaid, and Liebherr. I have a Whirlpool in our current kitchen; it, too, was made in the same plant as the Amanas.

Momj47 - your refrigerator looks great and I love your cabinets; your kitchen is very pretty!

The biggest problem with a single door bottom freezer fridge is that beyond a certain size, the door is HUGE and heavy and swing way into your aisle. That's why it's very rare to find one wider than around 33". The french doors are far easier to integrate into a kitchen design because of their narrower doors and you get more usable aisle space rather than it hitting you every time.

live wire oak while it is true that the door is big my reason for preferring the single door, bottom freezer is - I do not like opening a door and having the counter behind a door. Unless you can place a french door in the middle of a run of cabinets it will alway have a side without easy load/unload counter. Although it would work it fridge placement is very close to an island.

Lyno; When looking for a bottom freezer, single door refrigerator earlier this year, which is what I knew I wanted, I did my homework by looking at the Consumers Report issue that had come out a few months before, which ranked the Kenmore Elite as their preference.

Taking into consideration the width of the door versus available space issue, which I did not have, I did purchase the Kenmore Elite and have been delighted with it. It's extremely quiet and I love having wide shelves to handle large items.

Maxmom - I agree with you on having the wide shelves. I also like that when getting things out of the fridge I don't find myself doing deep knee bends to get to the back of the bottom shelf.

live wire oak and eandhl - you bring up some good points, I am working on a kitchen plan right now and I need to check the width and aisle. My DH drew up a preliminary plan that I'm tweaking before I post it on the kitchen forum for help. He wants a full depth refrig and plans on recessing the wall behind it (the laundry room is on the other side). It will be at the end of a cabinet run with the island behind serving as the landing zone.

I like live wire's suggestion of a french door style, but my DH is very firm that he does not want a French door refrigerator ("just one more thing to fail on it" - his words, not mine). We got our current single door bottom freezer Whirlpool under pressure when our 30+ year old SxS died it's final death (I swear that SxS had 9 lives; my DH could always replace a part and revive it!).

We also bought it with the thought we'd put it in the lower level of the new house I do like the bottom freezer configuration better than the SxS. I have been thinking that is what I want in the new kitchen. But our Whirlpool is making some strange noises. It fit right in at Halloween, sometimes it sounds like a spook is trapped inside - LOL. We haven't had any problems and DH says it's fine. We do normally use CR, but I also like to check for real people's experiences and other resources, too.

Thank you all for the comments and the food for thought. I'll do some more looking and go back to the plan for clearances. When I figure out our appliances, maybe youÂll see our layout post on the kitchen forum.

I have a 4+ year old Amana counter depth 36" single door bottom freezer. I had ordered a regular depth one, and when it arrived I found that the door hit the island. I exchanged it for the counter depth. The armoir style would have worked, but I like the less busy style of the single door, and I always seem to open the wrong door on those armoir styles.I worried about the loss of space with the counter depth, but truly, the space lost was generally occupied by things unknown and unseen, if you get my drift. Everything is easily visable and accessible with this set up, and the counter depth looks so much better. I have had zero issues with the appliance. It is quiet, runs great, sturdily built. Not sure if the model has changed since I purchased in 2004 though.

Thanks, tilenut. I found an Amana bottom freezer single door counterdepth, AMC2037DEB, online. The specs show with the door open 90 degrees it is 61 1/4" deep. I'll compare that to the full depth. Thanks for the info on your 4 yr old Amana; I'm glad to hear it is doing great and is quiet! I like Amana; I'll check to see if there has been any changes in the company in the past 4 years like some of the other appliance companies have experienced. And, yes, I catch your drift (LOL) about things getting lost in the back of the fridge!

We are also looking at a single door bottom freezer fridge.

The fridge would go next to a door frame. Will the door open without hitting wall? Does the door protrude out from side of fridge?