I'm not the very best person to comment, as we used to have a short, small apt. sized fridge withfreezer on the top... so *anything* was bound to be bigger and better! But I will tell you that we have the GE CAFE CD FD fridge since Sept. and we love it! We are only 2 people and there's plenty of room for all our food, in the fridge and the freezer. I can imagine it being too small for families of 3 or more. I guess it really depends on how much food you need to store, and if you have any additional storage anywhere in the house.

We have 2 small kids now, so that is a concern... however, we also will have a large side-by-side Maytag refrigerator (taking beige out for the stainless remodel) out in the garage (outside kitchen door) that can be used for additional freezer storage / party platters / drink storage.

This is a big decision, considering the cost of the counter-depth models! yikes!

We have two teenaged boys, so it means a LOT OF FOOD. Our kitchen is rather small and couldn't accommodate the depth of a standard fridge so we have a built-in counter-depth french door. (Thermador.)

It is fine for day-to-day, but for parties or when I do a really major stock-up shop, there is no way I could get by without our extra fridge in the basement. No way.

tigergirl, if you're redoing your entire kitchen and you know a CD fridge will fit in better in the plan, and you have another fridge out in the garage, then I say GO for the CD! I don't know exactly how much room you lose with the CD but I know that a CD fridge was very important to me in the plan of my new kitchen, and a regular depth fridge would just not work, at all. What I am trying to say is, go for what you think you'll like the looks of better. You might regret getting the big fridge. You have another fridge for extra storage, so you will be ok.

Someone elsewhere mentioned recessing the (regular size) fridge into the wall. That might save us only 3 inches... not sure if that's worth the hassle.

Do we regret the CD refrigerator? Yes and no.

Yes, I do wish it held more, but I'd rather it were wider than deeper. The deeper a refrigerator, the more likely it is things will get lost or forgotten.

No, I don't regret it b/c it's shallower and things now rarely get forgotten. Plus, it allowed me to have a better layout than I would have had if I had to stick w/a standard depth...something I'm very glad not to have had to compromise on!

One caveat...like others, we kept our old refrigerator (36"W x 36"D...31 cu ft big!) and put it in the basement. Both our children are now teens and there is no way the 36" CD refrigerator would be enough! I do wish I had a mudroom or large pantry to put the old refrigerator b/c I do sometimes forget what's in it b/c I sometimes forget to check the basement ref. If it were upstairs, it would be far better.

My recommendation is to get the CD and either:

(1) Get a CD 48" wide

.....or.....

(2) Keep your old refrigerator for overflow (note that if you have hot summers and/or cold winters, a garage is not the best place for a refrigerator).

There have been some threads in the past that discuss CD refrigerators...pros/cons, compared to SxS, etc. However, I'm at work and don't have my bookmarks here to post those threads. Try doing a search w/Google and appending "site:ths.gardenweb.com" to the search criteria.

Good luck!

My experience is the same as shanghaimom's. We are just fine with a CD fridge for our family of 4. I did not like the big honking size of the new SD fridges. Yegods, they are monsters! I am not sorry we went with a CD fridge at all. We don't have a spare fridge but the few times we need extra space coincides with cold weather so we store extra items in the garage for the short time necessary (pumpkin pie never lasts long around here).

Whether a CD fridge will work for you will depend on your needs. What items do you store in a fridge? Are you big soda drinkers? Do you stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables weekly or make more regular trips to the store? Do you have oodles of condiments, pickles and jams? Look at your fridge and figure out what you need to store and perhaps what you can do with out. For instance, do you really need 5 different kinds of mustard? ;-)

We keep apples, pears, oranges and bananas on our counter, potatoes, onions, garlic in the pantry with other fresh produce in the fridge. We shop more than 1x a week. The kids have a mini fridge (think dorm room size) in the play room for sodas and such (I'm not a soda drinker at all). As for condiments, we have a few more in the fridge these days because we buy regular and GF items but we don't go overboard on these items.

One other way to disguise a monster fridge is to make the whole wall of cabinets next to it deeper. Make the lowers 30" deep, not the standard 24" (I'm not including counter). You gain extra counter space and the fridge won't seem quite so hulking.

I don't think there is enough more space in a regular depth fridge to negate the need for an extra fridge...Not like you're losing 15 cu ft with the Counter depth. If you'll need 2 fridges, you'll need 2 fridges, either way, and I'd rather have the convenience the CD fridge gets me. I, like Buehl, would rather go wider than go back to standard depth. Those few inches only mean that we can see and keep track of things better, not that we have noticeably less storage space. I used to have 2 full-depth fridges (1 in the kitchen and 1 outside) for our family of 10. Now I have 2 counter-depth fridges (and more teen-aged appetites to fill) and it's plenty of room.

These are wonderful responses! Thank you so much.

Yes we are keeping the old fridge, which is a big one. Funny to have a bigger fridge in the garage than in our kitchen. LOL

We can't go any wider, the cabs are already installed and there's very limited space on that wall anyway. The fridge is in a corner, which would be the only "decent" thing about dealing with a big one... but the fridge door will open into the doorway from the family room (48" doorway)... not a great place for a big fridge.

Now a new question - is it ok to keep a fridge in a garage? We are in south-central PA so we do get hot summers and cold winters. It will Most likely be located in a corner and those two walls are interior (to the house - kitchen and mud room). Our contractor said "it'll be fine"...

Rhome, you just reminded me of one of the reasons I love my CD fridge. No more treks through the depths of the fridge, pulling out mystery items and exclaiming, "What IS this?" Left-overs get eaten before they spoil. Also, I no longer need to unpack a shelf, trying to find the one small jar of whatever I need *right* now.

My contractor said "NO" to garage, it will run all the time to keep at proper temp, and give out. I live in RI. That's why mine is in basement. :-)

I have had a fridge in my unheated garage for about 6 years. I really needed the extra fridge space like others have mentioned. I live in western Washington where it gets fairly cold in winter and fairly hot in summer, but neither for extremely long periods of time.

Here's what happens with mine. The temperature sensor is in the fridge apparently. In the winter, the garage can get cold enough that the fridge part of the unit doesn't need to run to maintain the correct temp. Therefore, the unit doesn't turn on the cold air. The freezer, however, needs the cold air to keep completely frozen. Sometimes certain things in the freezer get a little thawed out and then refreeze. I get some freezer burn occassionally. But the fridge part of the unit is completely fine.

I don't have any issues with it during the summer, but I'm sure that thing must run hard to keep everything cool.

This is a small trade-off for me as I absolutely need the extra fridge space.

Oh, and as to the counter-depth issue. Have you checked the actual cubic foot size difference in the fridge spaces? Some counter-depths have almost as much as some of the standard depths. Go on ajmadison dot com and check them out.

We needed a CD frig for our layout and thus went from a 27CuFt Kitchen Aid to a 23CuFt FD Samsung. I miss the extra room a little but do not miss having to dig things out of those long narrow shelves. We find that we always needed more freezer room then frig room so we are going to put a small chest freezer in the garage. Since it's not tied into a frig then I'm figuring we don;t have to worry about the temp in the garage.

We have always had an extra fridge in the garage (live in WV) and we are on our 3rd one in 20 years. IMO - they last as long as our one inside the house. When the garage fridge goes bad tho, we buy a cheapie to replace it. Like $600?? its really only used for extra drinks in the summer (accessible from pool) and platters/etc during the holidays.

We also have an upright freezer in the garage. $400-500 one IIRC. I'm sure it works its tail off in the summer.

I love my cd side by side Bosch. No regrets.
I used to have a honk-en huge massive monster called
the Superba Kitchen Aid refrig. I worried that by getting
the CD side by side that I would be giving up lots
of needed space. Not at all. I have not missed the
monster. From now on it is only CD for me.

NOw, I have another refrigerator not in my kitchen but
basement rec room. It has beer, soda, ice, frozen teen
age food (pizzas, mozzeralla sticks, ice cream...)
When we have parties sometimes I use that refrig for
trays of food but for the most part I have plenty of
space in my kitchen. Hope that helps you on your choice.
~boxer

I have given in to the CD as well in our upcoming remodel. Just kills me to pay more for less room, but our kitchen is soooo small, it just makes sense. Now I have to decide on which one. The Kitchenaid has a french door that is 72" high I believe - tempting.

SO - while we are discussing this - for those of you with CD's - please comment on brand choice too if you would :)

Samsung 237AARS. Fit our budget but really pissed about having to pay relatively more for less room. We wnet with this because it was the largest FD counter depth with water and ice through the door. This was a must have according to the DW. Has worked flawlessly for the last 3 weeks. Makes plenty of ice. If we had another 24" on that wall I would have gone wider but as it is this one fits nicely without dominating the kitchen the way the old KA SBS did.

Maytag, JennAir and KA all have cd's with ice and water or without. I like the handles on the JennAir. As someone mentioned, JA and KA have a 72 inch FD without ice and water in the door. They are very nice! Expensive but nice.
I've had very old fridge in the garage for more than 12 years and it still works fine. It was several years old when it was put there.
You are paying extra for the size or rather the lack of it with a cd, but they do fit in better with cabinets.

I used a counter-depth fridge in a vacation rental and realized it didn't have enough room. We looked into having deeper base cabinets around the fridge, either custom or moving the standard size out from the wall and having a deeper countertop. However, that didn't work because of our long, narrow floor plan. We went for a full-size fridge and it does stick out, but it was the right choice for us.

I echo what the others say. It is really great that everything is very visible and accessible with the CD but even though it is 7 feet tall it doesn't hold as much. I couldn't afford to lose more than 36" and recessing a regular depth 3" or pulling out the other cabs to match its depth didn't seem like a good solution either. I was planning on getting rid of my old fridge but....I'm thinking about stacking my washer and dryer and keeping the old fridge in the laundry room or keep it in the garage and just plugging it in as necessary. Somehow it doesn't feel right to buy a new energy star fridge to help the environment but keep the old energy gobbler plugged in.

I love my counter depth fridge. I don't lose stuff anymore, the fridge is better organised, easier to clean. Lots of room in my opinion. I have two young children, no extra freezer or fridge in the basement (well. we do have an extra freezer, but we don't use it). It occasionally does get pretty crammed, but no big deal. It is just a question of organisation. Our fridge is pretty tall and wide though, it is a Gaggenau.