Before the remodel, I sold my perfect condition 4 year old Kenmore fridge on CL. At that time I purchased a 3 yr. old counter depth SS KitchenAid for $1000 from a young woman on CL who had received the appliance as part of her divorce settlement. There are bargains if you are diligent about scouring CL daily even beyond the new Liebherr. Most of the folks who buy Liebherr have really tiny kitchens and need taller, thinner fridges than standard CD. How many sq. ft.is your kitchen? You may not need to go the more expensive Liebherr route. I would not buy the 14 year old KitchenAid. Even if the mechanics are great, the plastics inside become brittle and deteriorate over time. Three years age my 32 year old Montgomery Ward fridge was left with the house I sold still running great. However, the door lining was pulling away, and the door would not close completely due to a loose door casket. Neither of those items could be replaced any longer. I should add that we were a small family and careful with our possessions so this occurred due to age, not abuse. Paneled fridges are one technique to make a small kitchen look larger. However, door panels are an expensive option. You are at the beginning of your remodel, and there is frequently project creep. My approach was to go with SS and use the money for all built in appliances in my small kitchen so that the counter flow is not interrupted. I put the money in an induction cooktop over a 27" wall oven. This is a long way of saying go with the Liebherr over the KA but before you do, make sure you need to spend that extra money on the Liebherr over a standard counter depth like a KitchenAid. My apologies for rambling about on this post and good luck with your remodel.

Thanks for that link Davidrol! It's nice to see I'm not alone! I was fully prepared for the fridge doors and handles to protrude in front of the counter. I never really gave it a lot of thought, but I guess I imagined 4'' or so. The manual for the 30''D model we were looking at also stipulates that the fridge have 1'' of clearance at the back, which would put this ''counter-depth'' unit a full 7'' in front of a standard counter. We are in a cold climate and the fridge would be on an exterior brick wall. I was hoping that some rigid foam insulation might do the trick, but when the best case scenario at the end of the day is reclaiming a couple of inches, all the framing and fussing really doesn't seem worth it. Back to the drawing board...

We just installed our kitchen aid counter depth frige. It does not have counters next to it but rather pantry style cabinetry (which are standard depth). It looks like it sticks out about an inch or slightly less than I want it too (not the doors or the handles but the body of the frige). Once the doors of the cabinets are installed it shouldn't be as noticeable. My cabinet guy did recomend to notch out some of the sheetrock in the back of the frige where the plug is (because the stiff cords are preventing the fridge from going all the way back) and it should fit even better. The kitchen aid frige we have is model KFCS22EVMSO.

Why Hamma? Because most Americans say they need humongous refrigerators/freezers. I hear people say they need to store the meat they killed on a hunt. They have very large parties every weekend. They cater large parties. They have many children who need many snacks all day long. Maybe they live many miles away from the nearest grocery store or supermarket. One of the posters above mentioned pizza boxes and soda/beer can boxes. (Not sure why you'd need to put a whole pizza or beverage box in the fridge.) Personally I have none of those issues. I do not like nor need a large hulking refrigerator. Counter depth is a cost-effective way to avoid the behemoth fridge look in the kitchen. Yes, they do protrude a few inches, but not as much as a conventional depth one. I have the same KA counter depth fridge (cost $2,000) as Anglophilia in my vacation rental home, and after 7 years it's still working fine, and looks great. In my primary residence we went for a 42" side by side built in Subzero, which protrudes only about 2", but is much more expensive ($9,000 retail). Fully integrated Subzeros are totally flush with the cabinets, and require expert installers.