I’ve been agonizing over fridge and freeZer sizes in planning for our reno. We currently have a counter depth French door fridge, supplemented by a standalone freezer and a top freezer/fridge in the basement. For our new house, we will be installing column fridge/freezer in the kitchen, with a supplemental fridge (48” subzero) in the mudroom.

I’m debating whether we get 24” or 30” columns. We are a family of 5, frequently with guests. I am concerned about storage space in our kitchen, so trying to maximize pantry space. If I do 24” columns, I can fit a 24” pantry; 30” columns would be 12” pantry (pantry is for cooking/baking goods only; we will have cereal/bread/snacks/dry goods stored elsewhere). In our current situation, based on specs, we have 29 cu ft of fridge space & 25 cu ft of freezer, which is enough, but a pain to go up and down the stairs; we have only one corner cupboard w lazy Susan to store dry ingredients, with pasta, bulk cans, etc in basement.

To meet our current refrigeration sq ft, in addition to the subzero, we would need 10.4 ft in the kitchen fridge and 15.4 in the freezer. I am leaning toward 24” columns, which will give us slightly more fridge space than we have and 3 cu ft less of freezer space; My husband thinks we need the 30” columns, which would give us equal freezer space and 7 ft more fridge space (which we aren’t currently fully using). I think the more space we have the more we fill it (our basement freezer gets filled with Costco purchases, so if we had less space we would just buy less); But should we prioritize the fridge space over pantry? We already store a lot of ingredients in the basement and run up and down the stairs; I would prefer to have canned goods/broth, etc in the kitchen and walk to the freezer for frozen veggies or frozen meats. Thoughts welcome.