My kitchen didn't have room for them, but I did put one in my breakfast room as part of a hutch on the side wall. They have cabinetry panels on the front and are a surprise to guests. Mine serves a similar purpose to beagle's -- we have milk, juice, water, other drinks, yogurt, jam and jelly -- enough to keep traffic out of the kitchen before meal time. It also means we don't have to cross the entire kitchen and go to the far wall to get a drink refill during a meal. With our boys, that would happen at least once or twice per meal and we couldn't really move the fridge closer to the table without making meal prep worse by having to keep the cooktop in the island and the fridge on the far side of it. There area a number of things I enjoy about the new kitchen, but the fridge drawers may be the one that has made the single greatest change in our use of the kitchen.

The main storage in my (small) island is refrigerator drawers. All of my prep veg go in the top drawer. Roots, milk, butter, and some beverages go in the bottom. There's also opened wine. Anything I might need on the fly for cooking, since it's right across from the stove.

The hard part comes for gigantabird holidays. My top drawer will hold a 24 lb. turkey in the box, which also makes it easy to deal with when it's time to stuff and roast. I try to get in my veg early and have most of it prepped and ready before I bring home the turkey, so they're not fighting for space.

Yes, we have undercounter refrigerator drawers outside of the cooking area. They are in the tiny eating area.

They contain dh's cokes and overflow cold drinks. Our main fridge is holding more than we dreamed, and we haven't had any real company yet. It will keep coke drinkers out of the prep area. We are thrilled with our Elux drawers.

I have the KA fridge/freezer drawers, panelled as part of a "snack station" hutch for the kids. Our main fridge and the snack station are on opposite sides of the same DR doorway, but it is somehow far enough apart to keep the kids out of the main action area during busy times. We took the ice maker bin out of the freezer drawer to give us slightly more room in the freezer.

We usually have stuff in there that the kids would like quick access to: milk (a gallon jug fits easily), cheesesticks, yogurt, apples, baby carrots, etc. The freezer holds a box of waffles, maybe some chicken tenders and popsicles.

Only issue I've noticed is that the kids are now spoiled by all the soft close drawers elsewhere in the kitchen, and therefore aren't as careful to make sure they have actually shut the drawers completely; luckily there is a loud alarm that summons them back to finish the job!

honeychurch, how do you like your KA drawers? Anything you don't like? Are they self-defrosting? Noisy? Paneled or stainless?

Hi rococogurl,

We actually like them a lot. Don't notice any noise or frost, and the ice maker worked well while we still had it turned on. I have been surprised how much they can hold!

Ours take a panel and people are always surprised to see what they really are:

One thing, but probably not specific to KA--our cabinet maker knew about building the hutch deep enough the make the drawers flush with the rest of the cabinet, but we all forgot about the plug. That plug is a big sucker and definitely got in the way...the drawers thus stick out a teeny tiny bit but doesn't look bad, just like a little intentional bump out in the bottom middle of the hutch.

At least that's what I tell myself. :-)

honeychurch, glad you like the drawers. I'm looking to do something very similar and wanted to keep them 24" wide. Would put them on the right side where you have the cabinet. Good to know they take panels but especially about the plug.

From your photo it isn't at all apparent that yours aren't the same depth as the cabinet doors. I have a bumped out sink and love it so that wouldn't bother me with the drawers at all, either. It's a great looking hutch all around. Thanks for the info.

"... Is this a second refrigerator? ..."
I think it has to be a 2nd fridge. If a kitchen were so microscopic that it could only have an undercounter fridge, it would need a cram space.

In an undercounter door-style fridge one can cram things in. Lots of little things.
In an undercounter drawer-style fridge one cannot do this, or you lose track of everything because you are looking at the top 1 or 2 things only.

"... How do you use it?..."
I have several large containers. Some are transparent and the same size as " 1/3rd size steam pan " (search terms). Transparent lids go on the containers. They are stackable. They are as good as vegetable crisper drawers in full height fridges. (It's a 36"w fridge).

If in doubt about what to eat, I look in the drawer fridge first. Whatever is in the drawer fridge is to be eaten. No point waiting until it's too late.

I use a full-height stand up fridge for long term storage. Big or small.
E.g. anything big that may remain refrigerated for several days.
E.g. 20 or 30 little jars bottles or containers of rarely-used fancy sauces, fancy stuffs that are like spices, fancy condiments, stuff from Korea, Japan, France, etc. Most of these fit into the door bins. I ordered extra door bins and used all the perch points in the door.