"need" to have the 36" min. when we sell in 5 years? "

If that's your time frame then you better scrap a Leicht or any other Euro kitchen and big $$$ appliances. You'll never recoup the money you invest now .

If that doesn't concern you, then get whatever floats your boat. 27-30" or 36" fridge.

The 30" or a 27" subzero that is fully integrated ( totally disappears ) will be a big selling point if you decide to go with a Euro/German kitchen.

Canadians can get a tall 24"w LG fridge (much bigger than the LRBP1031) for about $700. A steal. Two of these and you have tons of fridge and freezer room. I have seen them several times. Quiet. Very good. I don't know the model number but I think it's the same as LG's model numbers in the UK and Australia. gr349? GR389?

An equivalent fridge 24"W costs two or three times that. (Why? I don't know. I don't get it.)

You don't know what family life is like. No one can tell you. What we can tell you is that what you think your lifestyle is will change in ways that you can't anticipate when your child is born. Additionally, remodelling is very stressful. It's really not a great thing to undertake with a hard deadline, and you don't want to have no kitchen when the baby arrives. If you have a lot of time, and a good, full service firm handling all of your details, and they expect to be finished several months before the baby, then go for it. Otherwise, have a really serious talk with your wife and make sure that she's comfortable with this whole redo right now. It concerns me that it's you, not she, asking the questions. If that's your way of doing division of labor, fine, but if this is your project, not hers, please, please talk to her some more and make sure she really really really wants to do it. The baby is enough of a stressor without a kitchen remodel.

I wouldn't go too far off of what is standard in your neighborhood if you really think you'll be moving within five years. Toronto is very different from where I live (SoCal), so I won't speculate on the expectations there, but where I live, a 36" fridge is expected by buyers (bigger if sxs), but built-in trumps freestanding. In a small apartment, smaller is fine, but in a 2000 sf home, not so much.

If what's there now is dreadful, and they can just plunk in a wonderful Leicht kitchen will be quick and easy (doubtful), and you don't care what you have to spend to get there, that's fine. If it's workable as is, and you really expect to move in five years, it's not really worth remodelling at a time when so much else in your lives is changing.

From a purely design/aesthetics point of view, since you asked, either size fridge is fine. Built-in is always going to be less obtrusive than free standing. You really don't know what your needs will be when you have a baby, however, and you may be unnecessarily limiting yourself.

Hi All,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I am learning a ton from these forums and other research.

I think I got our kitchen size wrong.. We have a 6ft pantry across the hallway so our kitchen is bigger than quoted but still small/small-medium. More colour for you and response to your comments:

The 'hood is nice (500ft from the beach and parks) and so we would get the money out of the house IF we had to move in 5 yrs and that's why we are considering going higher end: Wolf stove, Miele DW.. Leicht kitchen.

I've added a link to photos of the kitchen (we take possession of the house in 2 weeks) so you can see what I mean. Would like to hear comments if you have in general. Maybe I will post on the main kitchen forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen - what size fridge?

In your space, nothing else in the kitchen is to be changed. I would put a 36"w French door fridge in the opening that is already there. You need to use a tape measure to double check the height and depth of top front corners and hinges. Do not assume that web sites or the manufacturer's data will be precise or accurate.

To clarify, your nice hood means that you should be able to sell your place without trouble when it's time. If the market goes up, which it probably will as the pendulum has started swinging back all over, you should be able to sell it for more than you spent. If you do, you will be making inflation gains and speculative value gains (that's where the market price rises faster than it does for other things). What we're saying you won't be likely to get is someone paying you the cost of a Leicht kitchen over an above what the place would bring without it. People will pay more for nice than horrible, but they just don't pay a big premium over nice for superduper.

As to remodelling, I stick by what I said before. Unless you're waiting for the work to be done to move in, or the kitchen is rotting in a way that can't be seen in the pictures, combining a remodel with a first new baby is a lot of unnecessary stress.

When you're deciding on how much fridge space, try to figure out what life will be like with the baby. Will you be making and freezing all your own baby food? Or even attempting to? (There are a lot of ambitions like that that fall by the wayside once baby arrives.) What about chill packs to put in the diaper bag? Pumping? Storing milk? Teething rings? Increasing the amount of fluffy dark green leafies (though you should have already done that)? In other words, how will your new lives fit in your fridge? Will you have a free shelf for putting a whole tray of whatsis out of the oven on? Etc. Etc. Etc. It might all fit fine in a 27" SZ or 30" Liebherr. Or not.

A renovation in a house you live in harms your lungs because of the unusual kinds of dust. Your wife's lungs are more important than yours right now, because of her immune system during pregnancy. Your wife is expecting.

Also, the baby. I'm agreeing that you cannot begin and end the reno before the baby is born.

--
A single door fridge with a bottom freezer is also good. In a side by side you do not have much width in either of the compartments.

The 69" height is your limiting factor.

Not sure if your question is related to lifestyle or resale.

We're currently in a rental as we start building our new home, but we have a cheapo 30 inch frigidaire top freezer. Honestly, it's fine for fridge space. We are a couple with a 4 month old, we shop Costco for produce, usually have at least 2 gallons of milk, lots of condiments, etc. We don't tend to have a lot of leftovers hanging around since we try to cook only as much as we will eat, or we freeze things for the future. Not sure how this will change as our baby gets to be school age or a teenager though!

We did get a chest freezer for the basement, otherwise we'd be screwed for freezer space. It keeps breastmilk, leftovers, frozen meats, and ice cream. When we start solids, maybe homemade baby food as well. Just something to think about.

" People will pay more for nice than horrible, but they just don't pay a big premium over nice for superduper. "

agree wholeheartedly.

also remember the higher up the $$$ & hood scale you go - the more discerning and hard bargaining the customer is too. The chances of you hitting a home run and selecting exactly what the new buyer would select and willing to pay are slim to none.

I don't know the Canadian RE market - but in the U.S. you can expect to earn a return of 65% tops on a kitchen remodel - doesn't really matter the "level" of products. So, don't kid yourself into thinking that getting the Miele will get you more $$$ at the closing table.

In my experience it gives you a better "marketing" differentiator. Given two relatively similar properties, the buyer will choose the one with the newer/fancier kitchen or bath but usually won't stretch their budget $25k to pay for YOUR miele, leicht, wolf stuff over GE, bob's cabinets and whirlpool.

Given that kitchen , I think a 27" SZ 700 series is perfectly sized for that space. It'll give you as much "usable" storage as that SxS in there now. A 30" Miele or GE MOnogram integrated would be fine too.

I think a 36" will overpower that space even if it's a fully integrated type. I understand many people's bigger bigger bigger mentality, but I I don't think you'd find many (if any) people not wanting to buy that home because you had a 30" fully integrated fridge instead of 36" gee wiz french door fridge with ice, water and television in the door.

Even if someone stated that was the reason they weren't buying I'd be very skeptical. There is some other real reason.