The saga of the refrigerator continues...

The Saga of the Refrigerator continues...

March 19th -- At this point it was looking as if the problem with the refrigerator not fitting into the cabinet as it should was hanging entirely on the shoulders of the kitchen designer, but hold on to that idea for a minute....as has been the case, nothing is simple or straight forward.

I'm also very much trying to hang on to my sanity as this roller coaster is close to throwing me over the edge.  I remembered a line from an SNL monologue a few years ago that made me laugh...Jon Hamm was the guest host and since he is known for portraying the tormented, but brilliant ad man, Donald Draper on Mad Men, during his opening monologue he pitched a slogan for refrigerators..."a box of winter for your food to live in."  

Yeah, I just want a "box of winter for my food to live in"  that fits the kitchen cabinets.

The architect came over this morning, looked at the timeline of appointments I had with the kitchen designer, that included the designer coming over to measure the kitchen before and after the framing.  It was clear that I provided the designer with the specs of my appliances BEFORE the plan was finalized.  The architect was puzzled about how the designer's plan could be off.  So, the architect also looked over the blueprints, borrowed my tape measure, and kept trying to figure out the reason for why the refrigerator did not fit.

In the meantime, I need to explain a bit about my refrigerator selection.  The appliance market is flooded with way too many insane options for a box of winter for your food to live in.  I selected a simple top freezer model, with ice maker, that was large capacity and stainless.  I didn't want a side-by-side, or French door model,  and I didn't want a water dispenser or ice-maker in the door.  The kitchen designer admitted on the phone that he was concerned that I did not select a 36" wide refrigerator -- mine was 33" wide -- so he designed a 36" wide cabinet box that would need a bit of trim.  Apparently 36" wide is for side-by-side and French door refrigerators...meaning that simple top freezer models will no doubt be a thing of the past in the near future.  The kitchen designer told me he was doing me a favor to design a 36" wide cabinet so that when I eventually bought a 36" wide refrigerator in the future, I would thank him.  The kitchen designer admitted that he never checked the refrigerator depth.  The depth of my refrigerator is 30" but the cabinet depth was built to 26".  

The galley style kitchen was built in both the original part of the house as well as the new construction addition.  The ceiling had to be lowered in the kitchen that was in the original part of the house to match the ceiling height in the addition.  As the architect was checking the plans and measuring, he discovered that not only was the kitchen designer at fault, but the framers had also made a mistake in the placement of the north wall of the galley kitchen, which is the wall that includes the cabinet for the refrigerator.  While the specifications were correct and clear on the blueprints, the framers should have contacted either the contractor or the architect for any clarification, but instead that did not follow the blueprint.

Now that the architect determined that the source of this problem rests jointly on the kitchen designer and the framers, the next step was to figure out a solution to this problem. One solution is to open the wall, insert a header, trim the studs and add about 2 inches to the cabinet depth.  The refrigerator would still extend past the cabinet, so this is not a good solution.  Another solution would be to move the wall, but that would create significant problems in the laundry room, not only to further delay the completion of this project, create more dust and mess.  The least intrusive and most cost-effective solution is to replace the current refrigerator with a new one.

Ugh...not only does this mean that I now have to research refrigerators again, but in order to find one that will fit the current cabinet dimensions, it will not be the simple top freezer model that I wanted.  

Who shops for a refrigerator by dimension, rather than function?  Me, I guess, and believe it or not, there is actually a website that lets one insert dimensions and it spits out models.  So, maybe this problem has happened before?

That was the bad news...the good news:  the architect is trying to save me from any further brain damage over this.  He left telling me that he will speak with both the kitchen design company and the contractor, explain the problem, the cause of the problem and propose the resolution, which is that together they should share the cost to buy me a new refrigerator.  Incidentally, the owner of the kitchen design company, which is considered "high end" here, also very conveniently owns a "high end" appliance company, that I had visited earlier in this process and determined that it was out of my price range.

At least I don't have to hassle with this part to resolve this issue, for which I am grateful to my architect.

So, I will now begin the search for a new refrigerator.  However, it struck me that I might actually have THREE refrigerators on my hands...the old one that was moved to the basement, my new one that is too deep for the kitchen cabinet, and a model to be named later purchased on the basis of its dimensions.  The best case scenario is that the old refrigerator is removed from the basement and sent to the recycling center, the too deep refrigerator becomes the box of winter in the basement for my future home mircobrew to live in and a new, appropriate dimension box of winter for my food to live in fits in the kitchen.

So, I have faith that my architect will work with the contractor's framers and the kitchen designer while I search for another appliance.  Stay tuned....