Stainless

Stainless.

Also be aware that all those magnets on your current fridge won’t work on stainless.

Stainless to match the other appliances!!

The oak floor will look nice with the white cabinets, and so will stainless steel appliances. But the wood cabinets might clash badly.

Thanks everyone for the clarity about the stainless fridge!

M, I had also wonder a bit about the cabinet/floor compatibility you mention; the cabinets are natural cherry and the floors will be natural oak, so there aren't any stains to muddle things.

Here is a photo showing the cabinet end panel with the flooring in the adjacent room.

This end panel is veneered and the doors & drawer fronts are matched solid wood, so the grain is a little different, but color is about the same. But still, it's two wood grains, even if one is pretty bland....plus white & stainless (and a low key black stone counter). OTOH, the cherry cabinets only run 54 inches at floor level.

Magnets stick to my stainless fridge just fine.

The fact that these are natural colors is a good thing. That actually looks much better than I had initially worried. I think if this was stained wood, there would have been more risk of a clash

We have cherry cabinets and oak floors and I think they look fine.

Your fridge does not look counter depth, unless your cabinets are less than the normal 24” deep. However, since you don’t have a cabinet above the fridge, you could buy a counter depth model, which are often taller to have the same square footage. They may be more expensive.

SS! absolutely. Counter Depth. (having just researched this for my own fridge, I think I've sen them all). normal fridge depth is 34-36", just so you know. So check your depth there and see what you can do. Looks like you're going to need a counter depth due to that doorway.

Samsung/LG also have issues, so, pick your poison when choosing brands.

the bad thing (but really good) is you won't be able to attach all those magnets to a SS.

We can attach regular magnets to our SS fridge ...????

damiarain - Makes me wonder if your SS fridge really is NOT an SS fridge...

We can attach magnets to the exposed sides of our (gasp) LG fridge, but not to the doors, which are stainless.

Stainless and forget the magnets that always make any fridge look bad, I have no idea why you would want white..

Another vote for stainless.

I vote stainless it matches other appliances and u can get stainless fridge magnifying or not. I just bought ge stainless that’s magnetic but my old one from 05 was not. They both were real steel metal wrap doors

Counter depth next to that wall: make sure you can open the left side door! Check the manuals (installation or user guide) for your intended make and model and see what kind of clearance is called for. From your photos, it doesn't look like you'd be able to open the left side door wide enough to pull out drawers and shelves. I used to have a ref next to a wall and it drove me nuts not to be able to open the door fully.

good point chicago. we just got a GE Cafe counter depth and couldn't open the left door. (we had a regular sized Samsung prior to that, which came our farther, was quite a bit larger, and the door opened fine! we ended up having to cut back this door opening about 6".

Off topic - but I had to go and read b/c I was confused =)

SS can be magnetic or not - depends on if it's ferritic stainless steel (generally magnetic) or austenitic stainless steel (generally not magnetic) - a very detailed article here.

Looking at the specs for our stainless steel fridge, there's nothing to indicate that it is magnetic (let alone the arrangement of atoms on a body-centered lattice haha), so I guess if that's important to someone, one would need to do additional research/in-person-magnet-application

/offtopic

Thank you Chicagoan and Beth H. for the reminder about the left door opening situation. Before we purchased our GE model years ago, I had checked this situation obsessively. My research told me it would work, and it's been fine. While that left door doesn't open fully, it goes well beyond the 90 degree point, far enough that all the drawers pull out to their stop points. But the geometry of another appliance can be different so I need to revisit all that now!!!

If you need only 1 or 2 more inches for the door to open fully on a counterdepth you could screw a 2x4 to the wall behind the fridge. It would also be great for ventilation.

Beth H -- you mentioned that Samsung and LG have their issues -- I learned about Samsung situation when I was dryer-shopping a while back, but what about LG? After researching with Consumer Reports, DH has identified a model he wants and it is LG!

Consumer Reports is garbage and not worth the paper it use to be printed on. If you do decide to get the LG, get it at Costco where you can easily return it when it breaks a year or so from now. Which it probably will. LG makes decent-ish TVs and that’s about it. Even their washers, which CR also loves for some unknown reason, fail consistently.

No Costco for us on this purchase! Our service agreement replacement provision requires buying the new fridge at a Sears store.

I've had an LG washer and dryer for 10 years and no problems at all.

We have an LG french door fridge. It's been fine. Its about 7 or 8 years old. Had one issue early on where the divider bar between the doors stopped heating so we would have condensation build up. It was still under warranty so it was fixed. Haven't had any problems since. But we do hate the in the door ice maker. The next fridge we get will not have anything in the door.

Uh oh. My husband really wants that in the door ice dispenser. He fell in love with the one at his sister's place when we visited there recently. I wasn't thrilled with it as it seemed to always often spray ice particles around so they would end up on the wood floor. I was hoping hers was just a defective version....

In the door dispensers/ice makers are the number one repair item on fridges. Which is not to say don’t get one, but make sure your husband knows that.

I read so many poor reviews on those brands, I didn't even consider them. As for the Samsung, it has to do w/the heater coil that keeps ice from freezing and water flowing into the crisper drawers. WE ended up watching a youtube video and fixed ourselves for $10. Still, it was hit or miss w/the leak. LG, after everything I read, I didn't bother. Of course not every single one will be bad. you just roll the dice. you feel like gambling?

...and make certain the water connection to the ice maker is properly installed--seen many a quiet leak that ruins floors.

Geez, now that I have accepted that we need to go with a "stainless" fridge this time instead of white like we had before, it turns out that only the door will be stainless! Evidently now these things are all made with a dark grey or black covering on the side, and they call this the 'stainless family.' Yuck. I don't want a two-tone appliance! In our kitchen, one side of the refrigerator is in a highly visible location.

What brand are you looking at? That is certainly not true of all brands and models. Do you have a specific budget or can you apply a credit to any purchase?

Because of the service agreement warranty, we must buy the replacement fridge from Sears. They offer 14 varied models in the French door dounterdepth style, from GE and LG (which we are considering) and Kenmore (which we aren't).

Today I was baffled to learn that Sears recently discontinued the GE Cafe counterdepth French door model in stainless but kept it in black and a white door style (but only with an odd gold tone handle).

My question now is how to address the annoying black/dark grey sides of the new stainless door fridges:

1. apply a stick-on wrap cover to simulate the stainless look of the door OR

2. rig some kind of white side panel to simulate the look of the complete cabinet enclosures that everyone is using these days in the white kitchens with stainless appliances (which we opted not to do originally because the skylight above the fridge made an over-fridge cabinet impractical) OR

3. find some other brilliant solution from the village!

As you no doubt know, Sears went bankrupt last year, so things are much leaner there. It doesn’t surprise me that the options offered are reduced.

Do you have to get a French door model? How about a double door, or bottom freezer drawers with a single top door?

What is the width of your opening? I would rather pay a bit more for an upgraded model than to try to rig up a panel. When you sell, buyers are impressed by nice appliances, but dislike homemade “fixes”.

We have a Kenmore French door the largest capacity for 6 years when we did a new kitchen! Love it ,so much room & no issues!

Good point Chicago. We bought the new Samsung fridge next to the wall and could not open the door. Had to cut the wall. We removed the while wall and added a pantry. But the design missed a filler. So having to switch the pantry door. These doors on the fridge are really thick.

You can get SS panels to go on the side of fridges. But they are not cheap.

But they are not cheap.

It's all relative. You can probably go to a metal yard and buy a custom-sized sheet of stainless steel for less than $100. You would then need to figure out how to attach it to the fridge. Either construction adhesive or pop rivets would be my best guess. But maybe there is an even better option that would spring to mind, when you look at the actual appliance.

If you need the edges of the sheet bent around the sides of the fridge, then cost might go up by ~$10-$20 per side.

So, depending on how creative you are, this will cost anywhere between $50 and $150. Is that cheap? I don't know. It's much cheaper than what the appliance manufacturer would charge. But if you are doing this to spruce up a $600 fridge, then of course, this could be 25% of the cost of the appliance. That's quite a bit by comparison.

You mentioned that you plan to move..... Refrigerators are not part of the home appliances that stay, lsuch as the ovens and stove. So, you'll take this fridge with you or leave it? Some house offers will request refrigerator, dining room set, garage freezer, etc. Buyers ask for any freebies they can get. Buy the fridge that works with your future kitchen concept. If YOU like a white fridge to blend with bright white kitchen cabinets, then.... Remember: you can take it with you.

In our area, appliances typically stay with a house when it sells, so buyers expect that.

The current GE Profile counterpart to the fridge we had sells for about $2500 at Sears.

Good point Latifolia to consider alternatives to the French door, such as the bottom freezer style. Unfortunately Sears only has two of that style in the counterdepth and they are both very narrow for small/apartment kitchens. While I was at it, I looked at the sleek counterdepth refrigerator-only models, which are really tempting since we have a standalone freezer in our panty/laundry a few steps away. But then we wouldn't have a water/ice dispenser in the kitchen fridge and DH really wants that.

Is the warranty company giving that much credit towards a new one? It might be worth it to get out from under that and go with an extended warranty from a store that will be in business when it breaks. I bought new appliances almost seven years ago for a remodel and have had one issue that was covered 100%. It was the refrigerator ice maker and the only appliance for which I purchased an extended warranty.