Beautiful is good! I love paneled fridges :) If you want to break it up, however, there are all kinds of things you can do. You have have art painted on your panels. You can do chalkboard paint on one with a painted frame around it and a metal panel for magnets with a matching frame on the other. Or panel with dry erase boards! And you can have the beautiful ones made and store them for when your kids get older.

You could do "stained glass" out of lexan. Or you could just do a contrasting finish for your beautiful arched wood panels. You could paint them an accent color, or do a natural rather than stained finish, or a really dark stain with fancy hardware that pops.

Or if you'd rather have a different metallic finish, you could do copper panels. Or aluminum. And you could do any of them behind glass. Or just do glass. Or have glass reverse painted. Or foiled. Or both.

I love my paneled refrig. My kitchen before my remodel had a panel refrig. also and I wouldn't have anything else.

Before:

After:

I love my panelled fridge but it's an integral part of my design. We too have the GE Monogram all fridge and all Freezer but did not install them side by side. The fridge is in the kitchen and the freezer is around the corner in the butler's pantry. We've also finished our backsplash in a washable textured cream paint now.

lsandler, what do you have as your backsplash?

I like mine and I would do it again. I don't have small kids around though. A good friend of ours has a cherry paneled fridge that's now about 15 years old - so lived through 15 years of three kids from small to out of the house. Their fridge looks as good to me now as it did when it was new.

I can see what you're saying though about a lot of wood - with wood cabinets and floors but it seems lots of people have all of that and it's not too much.

I was really worried about all the wood too, but we really like how it came out. But then, I'm not a big fan of SS so maybe I'm a little biased. My kids are 6 and 7. The only thing I'm missing is the water/ice dispenser. We wanted the fridge to blend with the cabinets and didn't want to interrupt the flow with a dispenser, but I miss having one. I've posted my kitchen several times this week, so I won't bore everyone with it again. You can see it on my profile page if you missed it.

Yes, I 'wood' do it again! We broke up the wood expanse with a breakfast area and open shelving. Our fridge is visible from the formal diningroom which is one reason we paneled the 48 inch monster!

Absolutely. It's such a finished, integrated look. Love it.

I don't really have a choice since my fridge is visible from the front door. Mine is similar to Cindylou's. We are very happy with it. We don't have the ice/water in the door. I personally wouldn't do that with a wood door, seems like a recipe to ruin the wood finish with time. A great advantage of wood is you don't end up with magnets and other stuff all over the fridge.

One thing that helps break up 'all that wood' is to have the floor a darker or lighter color than the cabinets. Plus, I think it adds a nice contrast. Also, it seems to me that having the wood panel shrinks the size of the fridge visually. I'm not sure why, but before the panels were on, it seemed much bigger.

Absolutely - we just left our last house w/ two SS frig's and with 3 kids I would never do it again. LOVE my paneled frig (excuse the sunshine):

yes definitely. we have a 48 inch sub zero side by side and I was afraid it would just be too much stainless for a fridge that large. Here is how ours looks:

Yes it would be way and away far too much wood for me, ESPECIALLY if you are putting in a wood floor too. Definitely.

If the stainless steel fingerprint thing scares you, take a look at the Electrolux or a Kenmore perhaps. There is another thread going just now with zelmar's beautiful kitchen and more than a few people there have avowed that that Electrolux/Kenmore finish does not fingerprint.

Or else get the glass front Subzero. :-) With your kids around, they are bound to stand in front of the open fridge pondering their options and you'd have an excellent defense against that argument ;-)

I'm definitely in the minority, but I dont like panels! I want my fridge to look like a fridge! :)

Are you putting the two units right together? I think 6 feet of stainless might be a bit much if unbroken, but it depends on the room. And the alcove you are describing might house them nicely and give enough warmth to balance the cool SS. I have 4 feet of stainless and it doesn't bother me. That is surrounded by my blue cabinets, and the two cooler colors are an accent wall - the backdrop for the white and cherry in my kitchen. So I'd say placement makes a difference too. Have you looked at color renderings? Look also at the views as you enter the room from different angles or sit in adjoining rooms. And with 2 units, you can always look at splitting them up. Or what about putting a painted finish on the fridge and freezer with a top treatment to make them look like a huge armoire?

I'm another who doesn't really like the look of paneled appliances. But I think it's a personal decision as to whether you like the look or not; some do, some don't.

One thought, my parents have panels and it seems to me that their fridge door is very heavy - hard to pull open, have to really push closed or it swings back open. That may be just their model or wood, though? Do others with panels notice the weight of the doors?

Yes!

Our former house had SZ 601R all-refrigerator & 601F all-freezer installed side by side, with framed panels. Looked great, and kept the kitchen uncluttered.

We went with overlay wood panels in our new kitchen, even though our SZs are not side by side this time.

thank you all for the great pictures. You have convinced me that I don't want to give up ont he wood panels.

MMhockeymom - did you put your freezer somewhere else? I love your cabinet stain and was wondering if you did wood floors. Do you have any other pictures?

I love the look of your fridge/breakfast bar wall -- I am trying to design something similar in our new kitchen.

Could you tell me the dimensions of your wall/cabinets etc.

Thank you so much