Our current house came with a really bad refrigerator.
I mean…bad.
Handle falling off, no ice maker, strange-sized shelves that never seemed to accommodate a normal family’s food needs. Just bad. Pretty much the only thing I liked about it was that it was white. (You all know I am rooting for a comeback of the white appliance, right?)
We lived with it for a while, but then last year I did a project for Whirlpool Corporation and was compensated with…oh my goodness…a brand new kitchen suite.
I’ll share the rest of the kitchen, which isn’t completely installed yet, in another post, but today I want to focus on the refrigerator because a) it’s fabulous enough to warrant its own post, and b) you have the opportunity to win one just like it (details at the end of this post.)
Let’s take a tour, shall we?
I had my choice of several refrigerator styles, but I chose the Four Door French Door Refrigerator in White Ice.
Why White Ice rather than stainless or black? Well, in addiction to my penchant for the clean, classic look of white in a kitchen, I particularly love Whirlpool’s White Ice line. The surfaces are glossy and true white, and the stainless steel accents give the white a sleek look. It feels like the brand really put time into creating a beautiful line of white appliances, rather than just cranking them out because they have to.
Plus, our kitchen is very 90s, with floor-to-ceiling warm oak cabinetry and dark-green countertops. I felt that stainless just wouldn’t look right, and would make the whole room feel darker – while the white really keeps things light and bright and feels much more contemporary.
I also have a thing for refrigerator magnets (see the top photo!) and they won’t stick to stainless!
Here’s a closer look at the interior of the Four Door French Refrigerator:
What I love most about this fridge is the smart use of space. Everything, from the in-shelf doors, to the produce, meat and cheese drawers, to the smaller middle drawer, is just what you need for storing different sized foods, with movable shelves and dividers to fit your needs.
When we took these pics we’d only had the fridge a few days and were still experimenting with where to put things, but we’ve found that it’s been very customizable and I never have to worry that there won’t be room for leftovers plus new groceries plus that takeout pizza box. As you can see above there is plenty of room for all of it, including chilling bottles of wine alongside several gallons of milk (when these were taken we were about to have a party – I wouldn’t usually be chilling four bottles of wine at once. But it’s nice to know I can, should the need arise!)
There’s even a small compartment between the main refrigerator section and the narrow drawer beneath with a see-through door that slides side to side. It’s perfect for small snacks like string cheese and yogurt. (Clara claimed it as “her” compartment the moment she saw it, because it’s low enough that she can easily help herself to snacks. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that the boys use it, too.)
Oh, and did I mention that the fridge beeps to let you know if you’ve left the door open? Which is good for me, because I tend to, um, daydream, and have been known to wander out of the kitchen with the fridge and every cabinet and cupboard wide open. Ahem. I do appreciate, however, that it only beeps a few times and then gives it a rest, recognizing that sometimes you need to leave the fridge open while you reorganize it or put groceries away.
Now let’s talk about the freezer.
Previously I’ve always had either a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer combo or a top freezer/bottom fridge.
Neither design makes a lot of sense for a larger family. With the side-by-side, both the fridge and freezer get short shrift: try fitting a large pizza box in the narrow freezer, for example, or a cookie sheet in the almost-as-narrow fridge side. The top/bottom models are better, but why is the freezer at face-height and I have to stoop to get into the crisper drawer, when I use my refrigerator constantly and the fridge not nearly as much?
The Whirlpool Four Door French Refrigerator is exactly the same size as our old fridge (top-bottom model) but both the fridge and freezer somehow manage to hold so much more – mainly due to the orientation and smart design. For example, the freezer has three drawers – one very shallow, one a bit deeper and one quite deep – so that you can organize its contents based on package sizing.
One last feature I want to point out: the icemaker/water filter & dispenser.
The boys are obsessed with the water dispenser! You can enter in the number of ounces to pour, then position your glass, hit the button and walk away. As a result the boys have learned the precise volume of every glass in our house so that they can program it to dispense just the right amount of water.
Sometimes it’s the little things.
I also appreciate that you can get either crushed or cubed ice on the outside of the door, or, if you’re all “ain’t nobody got time for that!”, you can open the fridge door and just grab a handful of ice out of the top of the dispenser.
We love this fridge – seriously love it. And the good news is, you have a chance to win one of your own! All you have to do is take a picture of the inside of your fridge and share it on social media tagging @WhirlpoolUSA and #Fridgie (be sure to check the Whirlpool #Fridgie Facebook page for the details, and read up on the official contest rules here).
The one that came with our house is a large SubZero, which has its pluses (like it’s really big!) but it totally doesn’t fit the space in our galley kitchen. It sticks out past the counters and you can’t open the door all the way. So I’ve been wanting a new fridge for the past six years but can’t justify spending the $$ until this one breaks.
If I won, I’d pick white!
Our fridge is leaking water, so getting a new one would be great! stainless probably!
Oh, the appliances that come with a new-to-you house! All of our kitchen appliances are currently black, but I’d love to update to stainless over the years. While the black is a bit of an eyesore, I have a feeling we’ll be using ours far past the time our handle falls off! Our refrigerator freezes anything placed in the back, so we need to do our best to strategize what we put back there. Thanks for the chance to win!
Wow, I don’t know what color would look best in our dated kitchen, but a new fridge would be phenomenal! We do so much cooking at home that we run out of space very quickly on our current set up. Amazing giveaway!
Katelyn, what I love about white is it looks good in both dated and up-to-date kitchens. I’m a little bit of a white appliance enthusiast!
I LOVE that white Whirlpool with the stainless accents! Perfect for my kitchen. We just bought a home and the fridge that came with it is no bueno. Rusty icemaker! My in-laws gave us their old fridge to use as a backup in the garage and that on is even worse: no icemaker or water and so narrow I can’t even fit a frozen pizza box in the freezer.
I found your post about Time Management for WAHMs thanks to Pinterest. I started looking around after I read it, and found this. We have a stainless side by side, it keeps the cold stuff cold, and the frozen stuff frozen (so far). What I don’t like about it, and you mentioned it in your post, is that you only have part of the width, so putting a big box of pizza in it is just not happening. I’m intrigued by the white ice color. I’ve actually been hearing about white being the new stainless.
Ugh, the tyranny of the crunched-up pizza box 🙂 So glad you came by!
I don’t like my fridge at all! I had a two door with lots of shelves; but it was old and replaced it with a new one that just has the one door and it’s like I don’t know how to use it! I can’t seem to fill it right.
If I won the #fridgie contest I’d pick the White Ice.
Your fridge is incredible! Mine…isn’t so nice. It’s about 15 years old and while it was perfectly fine and basic at the time, it doesn’t hold nearly enough for my always hungry brood. I love all the space in your fridge. Getting excited just thinking about all the storage possibilities!
I forgot! If I win the #fridgie contest, I’d go with white ice.
The white ice colorr fridge would fit perfectly in our kitchen! what a dream!
Very interesting thread.
I bought the oven and microwave in white ice. I’m also addicted to white and looks clean. But the price is still out of my reach. My old fridge is going and the temp climbs up so I keep vacuuming the old coils and it hangs on for a few weeks and gets hot again. It actually burnt my grandson’s arm a month ago. So I’m really hoping I could win this gorgeous fride to complete my kitchen! Just love this look so much. Wish me luck!
I loathe my LG fridge (not to mention LG’s customer support). Long story short, the bulbs inside the fridge stayed on overnight, which burned the light panel, melted plastic, and burned the bulb sockets. It could have started a fire! There is now an eyesore of a panel inside my fridge, hanging by wires. Duct tape no longer works holding it up due to the cold temp., now it’s held up my containers of food. A very classy look when guests come over. LG had a recall on the fridge, but they expect me to pay for some of it….WHA??? Insane.
If I won the #fridgie contest, I’d choose white, hands-down!