Tis a tale of two fridges

I have a house which looks like a hoarder's den. There are tools everywhere, sawdust in every corner, furniture out of place and the cats are having a ball with cardboard bits and rediscovered felt mice. All this because we got up Friday morning last week to a dead refrigerator. (The freezer compartment was still working, thankfully.) I went out and bought ice to help keep the fridge compartment cold. 

We measured the space and I sat down with the web to shop for a new fridge. I quickly discovered that in the ten years since this building was built fridges have grown. I could only find two which fit in the space I have. One was really cheap, less than $500, and when I went searching for reviews they were uniformly terrible. Not one recommendation. So, though I didn't necessarily want a side by side fridge/freezer, it was the only other fridge I found that fit the space (or so the dimensions on the site said.) 

I went out Friday afternoon and bought a new fridge, lightening my pocketbook by $1100. They arrived with it at 6:00 Tuesday evening and while I thought for the $90.00 we paid to have it delivered that they would at least unpack it and plug it in, they wheeled it in and left it sitting unpacked in the middle of my tiny kitchen floor.  I had paid for them to take the old fridge away, which they were a bit disgruntled by, but grudgingly did, when I waved the receipt under their nose and insisted. 

Never ever let anyone tell you expanded polystyrene is not strong. The doors were secured by an i-beam of polystyrene. It took us an hour to dig it out with the business end of a closed pair of scissors. I was sweating like a Dallas Cowboy by the end. It took us another hour to peel off the adhesive film it was shrink wrapped in, rather like skinning a bison, with less blood and more swearing. 

Larger than advertised

So we unwrapped this King Tut's mummy of a fridge and went to roll it into place. We'd already decided that plumbing the water line for the ice maker and filtered water could be done later, but wait - it wouldn't go in. Oh, I had forgotten. We had to remove the skirting board which is sort of a fancy profiled molding along the floor which projects 3/4's of an inch into the room, including the corner where the fridge sits. 

So I got down on my knees with a chisel and hammer and pulled off the skirting board. That should do it. We rolled the fridge back. No. It still wouldn't go. Now what? The wall looks straight, but when compared to the fridge it's clear it bows inward, and the fridge catches on the bow.

On the other side the immoveable object is a 30" stove. (Very poor design - what dimwit puts a refrigerator adjacent to the cookstove?) The fridge and stove had discovered each other and instantly fallen in love. The corners were kissing, and would not give up this new-found intimacy.   

We stood back and surveyed the situation. The formica top on the lower cabinets projects about an inch beyond the cabinets, leaving a useless gap between the stove and the cupboard along the wall. You can't get a broom or any cleaning instrument in there. If we could cut that projecting bit of formica off, we could move the stove over that inch and Bob's your mother's sister's husband. (I say "we" meaning Ian of course.) I place a call for rescue.  

Ian, who learned these skills at his father's knee some 35-40 years ago, arrived at the door about dinner time, armed with dinner and a power saw with a diamond-tipped blade.  The first cut, which took off an inch, was not enough, for while the store's website gave the fridge's width as 80.3 cm (31.6") it measures 83 cm (32.7").  The evening ended when the building's mandatory 10:00 pm "quiet time" kicked in, and the fridge was still sitting in the middle of the floor. 

I woke up in the middle of the night with the sick realization that while we could move the stove over there is absolutely no way to move the range hood over. It is connected to exterior ducting, and while it is angled at the front six inches, it widens out to span the stove width after that. I shot off a quick e-mail to Ian and went back to bed. 

I began figuring how we were going to have to sell this fridge at a considerable loss, buy the one which had received terrible reviews and cross our fingers that it wasn't as bad as everyone said it was. I used to carry a tape measure in my purse. Why did I quit doing that? 

I had a medical appointment shortly after noon which took several hours, then I went grocery shopping. When I returned home at 4:30 I was delighted to find my fellas had figured out how to get the fridge in. Ian removed the entire blind end of the cabinet and countertop, and the fridge squeaked in. But it went in only because the range hood is an imperceptible inch shorter than the stove on each side. If it had been as wide as the stove we would have been hooped. 

Lesson learned byes and gurls: Tyke yer type measure to the shop wi ye and measure the ting yerself. Don' go trustin' no website ner salesclerk wi' dollar signs a shinin' in his lovely brown eyes when ye asks him, "Are ye sure enuff now this tis is only thirty one and a half inches wide bye? Looks bigger to me now I sees it up close." 

Because he'll be tellin' ye anything tuh get that fridge out the door, and cause it's on the sale now ye won't be bringing it back and all.  And what does he care thet you'll be spendin' two days sweatin' bullets and rippin' up yer kitchen. And them two nights you'll be havin' the nightmare about walkin' around that fridge sittin' in the middle of the floor of yer wee kitchen for the rest of yer nacherul life. 

Ah, but 'tis a fine fridge, and has two grand doors side by side, fridge on one side, freezer on t'other.  And it uses less of the electrics than the old 40 watt bulbs. Even me mother would be impressed, and she was a hard un to please, was mother.