I realized that my REAL problem is being able to open the door, period. The space is exactly 36" wide, and when I looked at fridges today, the door extends beyond the frame of the fridge, even when opened only 90 degrees. I won't be able to open the right-side door AT ALL on a french door fridge, unless it doesn't extend past 36 inches. (Are there any that would allow it? I don't even know what terminology to use in a search...)

There were several Whirlpool fridges that had doors that seemed to be flush with the side of the fridge once opened to 90 degrees, but the online documentation says they're 43-47 inches wide with doors opened 90 degrees. That might include the handle.

The terminology you are looking for is "zero clearance doors." Been a couple of years since I've seen one of those in a a reasonably priced freestanding fridge, though. (I recall a thread from three years ago but could not find it with a search at the moment; sorry.)

FWIW, the 43-47 inch measurement is depth, not width. That measure is how far
out into the room the door will project from the back wall when the
door is opened to a 90° angle.

Figure that a French door model would need about 2½ to 3" beyond the closed door width. So, you could get up to a 24 cu. ft. capacity model in your space --- those are 33" wide or a little less --- and have the right side door open to a 90° angle.

However, that won't be wide enough to solve all problems unless you can find find a model without door storage.

I'm thinking of my FD Kitchenaid as an example. With the doors open at 90° angles, I can open and even completely extract the deli drawer at the bottom of the compartment. (The door bins and their support framing starts just above the level of the deli drawer.) Obviously, if you got one of the models like schmarda mentioned, with the exteriorly accessible drawer, you would not even have to think about this.

Bit of different story with the the crisper drawers, though.

Not an access problem, but a problem for complete extraction of the drawer.

So, no problem getting produce in and out of them. Not problem for cleaning them in place. They open far enough that they almost fall off their tracks.

At that point, however, they run into the on-door storage bins and support framing project out from the door. That's a problem when you need to clean benath the drawer and/or remove the drawer to a snk to wash it out.

The support framing sticks out just far enough that, with the door at a 90° angle, I can't quite wiggle the crisper drawer out. The door needs wing a little bit more, maybe another 15° or 20° wider. If I only had a 90° angle on the door, I'd have to slide the fridge out a bit to get the door wide enough to completely remove and replace the drawer.

Consider how often you completely remove crisper drawers now and that will tell you about how much of an inconvenience that limitation would be for you.

I was looking at this Whirlpool, because the drawers didn't seem to be an issue, and the door seemed flush when opened. Here's the snippet from the manual:

But I am also looking at a 24 cu ft 33" wide FD model, because it has the same cu ft for the fridge part as a 36" single-door bottom-freezer model.

Okay, I can see where the confusion came from.

I still can't find that thread on zero-clearance doors, but even with a zero clearance door swing to the right, you would still have the interior door framing for the door bins blocking removal of the right hand crisper drawer if you can't get the door to swing past 90°.

That seems to be true whether you go with a 36" wide zero-clearance FD model (assuming one can be found) or with a 33" model that looks like the picture you posted above. (Which, incidentally, looks exactly like my KitchenAid.)

Anyway, you may need to check your notes because I cannot find any current free-standing single-door bottom freezer fridges that are 36" wide. The biggest ones all seem to be in the 33" class and they all seem to have projecting door handles and door storage bins. Could not find any 36" wide SDBF models when I checked the Whirlpool website as well as AJ Madison who seems to have pretty much every model currently made.

FWIW, in the 33" wide class, the FD and SDBF models come off the same assembly lines and differ mainly in how they hang the doors. There really isn't any significant difference in capacity. There are 36" wide FD models with larger capacity but there don't seem to be any free-standing SDBF equivalents that I can find in that size.

Seems like a Hobson's choice. With an SDBF, you can swing the door to the right against your side wall, which would give you ready access from the fridge to the left-side counter but leaves you with the problem of not being able to take out the right-side crisper drawer. Mount the door to swing to the left and you solve the drawer removal problem but pretty much block easy access for taking things from the fridge to put them on the counter next to it (or vive versa when bringing groceries to it). With a FD model, you get the drawer problem with only some of the blockage problem. Is there a counter or island opposite the fridge.

FWIW, I just did a little experiment with my 33"-wide FD fridge. I wondered if it might it might be possible to get enough of an angle on the right door by leaving off the projecting door handle. I found that with the door swung a little over 2 inches wider, and, if I pulled the left hand crisper drawer first, then it was just just barely possible to wiggle the right crisper drawer past the bin framing.

That's a real kludge. You'd be limited to a 33" wide FD model and would have to keep an allen (hex) wrench handy to remove and replace the right door handle whenever you needed to remove that right hand crisper drawer.

Maybe with enough responsive postings now, we'll attract the attention of somebody with better information.

Wow, thanks for all that info! I don't know how I missed that the one-door fridges were only 33".

Originally, we were thinking of taking down a set of cabinets/desk on one wall and getting the Frigidaire twins. We might have to go back to that plan.

I don't take the crisper drawer(s) out except to clean once every few years. We had a meat drawer in our last fridge, and I took that one out frequently to clean it.

I saw one fridge that had each drawer hanging from its own shelf (half the width of the fridge). I'd be able to remove the left one first, then the right. But, the drawers were shallow.

I just wanted to update that we ordered a 30" KA french door for now. We won't have an issue with that wall, and we won't have to remove the upper cabinet above it (the cavity is exactly 68" tall).

We're remodeling our kitchen and will buy a bigger fridge when we have a proper design for it!