"I don't understand the french door thing. Why have to open two doors? It has an application in kitchens with small aisles, I guess, but I dunno - I'd rather have the aisle spaced correctly. The ones with the big trays across the bottom are the worst to me." LOL - side by side fridges are basically French Door fridges - it's just the freezer is one side and the fridge is another - get an old school fridge with the freezer on top or bottom with one door the entire width of the fridge and I don't care how big your kitchen is, you will be desiring side by side or french door for the half-width doors. Also, if you prefer a side by side, why would you have to open both doors on a french door fridge? Your already used to accessing the fridge through a narrow door anyway :o) The side by side fridge I have came with my house - otherwise I would never own one. You can't put in odd-ball sized stuff, and normal stuff doesn't even fit well. It has allot less drawer space than the Samsung freezer on the bottom I had in my town house, and my Samsung was the smaller 18 cubic foot and my side by side is 25.5! To me, a side by side is like a 1500 square foot two story house vs. a 1500 square foot ranch. Theoretically they are the same square footage, but in the two story you loose space to stairs and hallways - not nearly as much actual usual space. I too have an extra chest freezer, but as others stated I would have one anyway. I have a foodsaver and I'm not afraid to use it. I buy things in bulk, on sale, and freeze them routinely. I wish I could find a fridge with a single height freezer drawer for quick access to the stuff I use regularly and the rest dedicated to fridge space. That would be ideal. Indeed, if I ever remodel my kitchen I'm seriously considering putting a fridge only in where my side by side is and a single freezer drawer (if they make such a thing? Surely someone does) in my island. I'd gladly sacrifice a little cabinet space for some more fridge space. I guess if you don't cook at home often, or eat that many fresh fruits or vegetables it's less important, but I never seem to have enough fridge space.

Plain old Montgomery Ward Admiral top freezer that's about 25+ years old. Quit working about a month ago but all that was wrong was it froze up. Thawed it out and it works fine. Had to throw everything but didn't buy a new one. Almost bought a new Samsung 4 door side by side where you could set the bottom two drawers to be refrigerator or freezer independently. On clearance for $700+. Nice looking unit and I thought it's still a cheap upgrade if I could find someone who wanted this one, or just have them haul it. It was a $2500 unit that they had on clearance (discontinued model). Then I started thinking, I have trouble if I put my car keys in the wrong pocket. How the heck will I keep track of what's where with FOUR DOORS! Guess I could make an inventory list... yeah right, that would happen. Plus I do NOT want an icemaker or water from a frig. Takes up so much space and I wouldn't want a refrigerator with it if possible. But it's hard to get without these days.

One day many years ago, we went to a lady's home to pick out an anniversary cake for my in law's 50th wedding anniversary. She had her kitty litter pan on top of her refrigerator!!!!!! Now as to what is on top of my refrigerator is the same as what is on my tall freezer in my kitchen, empty large baskets and two baskets have great big stuffed chickens in them! Strange I know. Sue

We have a large upright freezer in our attached garage. Also our old SxS fridge. I don't know how helpful this will be but, here goes.... We don't buy much processed food at all so there are no frozen pizzas or such inside. We rarely eat red meat but DH goes fishing in Alaska every summer so we have a freezer full of halibut and salmon in seal-a-meal type freezer bags for two people, marked with the year. Any fish not eaten by the time the next trip comes around is thawed and smoked so we only have one year's catch in the freezer, so no need to rotate or identify further. We also home-can our own tuna but we usually buy the tuna off the boat and freeze it until winter as we're always busy with other more fun, outdoor pursuits in August when the tuna comes in. So we have a huge tuna in there right now and will probably can it in February as we're almost out of our home-canned. We also freeze razor clams dug during clamming seasons. It gets eaten fast enough to not worry about marking it. Clams don't last long in this house. :) We freeze berries in the summer for smoothies, sorbets, etc. Also don't worry too much about identifying the year because we usually use it all up before the next berry season hits. We keep it organized by having a shelf for salmon, another for halibut, another for clams and other oddities like the rare chicken or beef I might buy on sale. The berries are in freezer zip-locks and then plastic shoe-boxes marked with the type of berry. We have a fairly small fridge in our kitchen due to space issues so the garage SxS is used to store any overflow of fresh veggies or fruits that need cooling and is usually filled up with pre-prepped dishes before a big holiday gathering or other entertaining. I simply keep a list of what's in the garage fridge on my kitchen fridge so I remember what's in it when I run out of that item in the kitchen fridge and can replenish the kitchen fridge. I use the freezer section of the garage SxS for freezing things like soups, stocks, frozen veggies from the store, the dog's home-made food, etc., and then will bring it upstairs to the kitchen freezer as needed. These are marked with item name and date. I try to rotate the older items toward the front so they are grabbed first. Our kitchen freezer is mainly stocked with the frozen smoothie packs (green, fruit) that are ready to pop into the Blend-Tec in the morning for our green smoothie. Also with things like yeast, flax seeds, chia seeds, and the various items like that which we put in our smoothies. We go through this quickly enough to not need to mark it with dates. The large upright freezer in the basement is the only one that needs occasional thawing about once a year. I usually do this when all the fish and berries are eaten so it's fairly empty. Less stuff to move into coolers while it thaws. Since it's in the garage, I usually use the hose to knock off any bigger chunks of ice and then let it drain, wipe it dry, and reload it. We fill containers with water to put into the freezer as it empties because freezers need to work harder to stay cold when there are large, empty spaces inside them. Since we don't eat much dairy anymore, we don't have milk containers lying around so I often find myself using coffee cans and such. I wish I had saved more gallon milk jugs to reuse. When the freezer is filed and the water containers aren't needed anymore, we usually let them thaw and use the water in the garden.