Appliances, Part II: Refrigerator

We bought our refrigerator tonight, which means we are done buying appliances for the foreseeable future!

As excited as I am about scratching this off my to-do list and overall satisfied with our purchase decision, I will admit this is a battle I lost.

See, I had my eye on a 31 cu. ft. french door refrigerator with all the works (in-door ice maker, foldaway shelves, fancy-schmancy LED lighting) at the bargain basement price of $2199.

But, Sears offered another fridge with almost everything for the unbeatable price of $1399. It's still a french door style and it does have the in-door ice maker. And from the outside, they look almost identical. To the money-minded husband (thank God, that makes one of us), that's close enough.

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 There's three big differences between the one I wanted and the one I got:

1. Less space. Our refrigerator has 25 cu. ft. versus the other refrigerator's 31 cu. ft. Pat's point: we can't fill our current fridge. My point: more space is better; with our new gourmet kitchen I may decide I want to be a gourmet chef. Even when that doesn't happen (because, well obviously), we might have kids in a few years and we'll need to store higher quantities and greater varieties of food stuffs. Deciding vote: when you do the math, the price per cubic foot is still better for the smaller refrigerator, unlike the economy size groceries we're going to fill it with. Pato - 1, Kato - 0.

2. No foldaway shelf! Pat's point: "how often are you going to need that, not just play with it?" My point: it's just soooo cool. Plus, think about all the times we've almost been able to fit something into the most logical spot but couldn't because it was just a half inch too tall(mainly condiments; shhhh, don't tell Pat those will fit in the door at the new place). Pat actually conceded that one. Pato - 1, Kato - 1.

3. The lights aren't as pretty. Anyone who's been appliance shopping knows how cool it is to open a refrigerator to that awesome blue-ish LED light. It just feels so fresh and so clean-clean (not really sure how a light feels fresh, but it just does). Our refrigerator has "LED" lights, but they have that same, old refrigerator feeling (almost yellow), not new like the veritable spaceship I wanted. Pat's point: a light's a light; if we can see our groceries it's a success. He even offered to add a flashlight to the deal, like that would help. My point: it's just so pretty. I know, not very strong. Pato - 2, Kato - 1.

Even though the points are clearly in Pat's favor, I still pouted a little. In the end, it came down to two cool, but mostly unnecessary features making up an $800 price difference. As much as I wanted the wow factor fridge, I also want a Pottery Barn sofa and not-cut-rate home owners insurance (more on that later).

Maybe I'll see if I can find a foldaway shelf as an after-market upgrade...

Update: It only took until October 19th for my husband to announce he couldn't fit anything else in our fridge. Turns out that extra 6 ft could've benefited us.