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.

I have Perlick drawers in my breakfast room hutch. I don't use mine for main food storage but they support our breakfast/coffee/beverage bar function of the hutch. We keep milk, juice, sodas, water and other drinks there as well as some yogurt, jam, etc. They are opened frequently but my milk actually stays fresher longer in the drawers than it did in the old fridge. I couldn't really move my fridge location from the far end of my kitchen but I hated the kids coming in and hanging at the fridge door looking for something to eat or divine inspiration, people getting in my way while cooking or cleaning up and having to go from one end of the kitchen to the far end just to get butter or a different salad dressing or another glass of milk --- or whatever it was we'd go to the fridge for several times a meal. They are expensive, but when used well, they are SOOOOOO worth it. I wasn't thrilled with the cost going in, but after 7 years, I'd do it again without hesitation. From what I've seen, Subzero and Perlick are the way to go. I needed 24" so it was Perlick. At the time, Perlick was the only one that was Energy Star rated even with the higher BTU compressor. Keeps stuff cold, even with frequent opening, and uses less energy. Gotta love that.

My kitchen and bath renovations are scheduled to begin tomorrow. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight! I, too, have a small kitchen and I live alone, so I opted for the Bosch 18-inch dishwasher. I preferred the conventional-type dishwasher thinking that I'd have an easier time fitting tall items. Turns out the 18-inch panel-ready is quite a bit more costly than a standard model, about $850. I treated myself and made room for a 12-inch wide undercounter wine fridge. Mine is a Danby, and I think it was $650. I'm pretty sure beverage cans will fit as well as the regular bottles of Champagne, but the larger bottles might be an issue. All the more reason to drink them quickly! Also a splurge was the Liebherr 24-inch wide refrigerator, but it makes sense in my pretty small kitchen. The narrow refrigerator allowed me to get a 21-inch wide full height pantry -- and, yes, it's made out of an upper cabinet with 3 or 4 rollout shelves and a lower cabinet with a narrow drawer and two deep drawers. I do plan to be here for the long run and since this isn't really a family-size apartment, I'm not too concerned about resale value. I just wanted what suits me! Good luck!

I do not have room for anything larger that total of 36" for a regular fridge and freezer (current space has only 30") . SubZeros simply do not have enough dedicated space for produce and like pretty much all other brands, waste too much space on freezer space. I need a small freezer at least (I have a full one in the basement) to keep certain items at hand, so I can't give it up altogether. Side by side columns take up far more space than I have available. The Tupperware green containers take up far too much storage space and don't work all that well. I get weekly produce deliveries from local farms that I need to be able to store and keep as fresh as possible until I'm able to use them. Wish Subzero or Miele had 4 door models with the ability to change the function of one section to fridge/freezer (like Samsung does, but with better reliability).