Small Home Gazette, Fall 2021
Refrigerators for Small Kitchens
Chances are, your bungalow kitchen was designed to accommodate an icebox. Since yesteryear’s iceboxes were small and today’s refrigerators are not, you may have a space problem. If you are fortunate, your kitchen is large enough for a full-size refrigerator. But even if you can technically fit such a beast into the room, that does not mean it will click perfectly in place. Sometimes the ‘fridge is so deep that it looms into the room, perhaps partially blocking a doorway. Sometimes width is the issue—the refrigerator can slide into a niche, but there is not quite enough elbow room for the door to swing fully open.
Fortunately, appliance manufacturers are waking up to the fact that some of us want compact appliances that are not the cheap, stripped-down, apartment-size boxes. Major brands now make quality refrigerators that are as narrow as 24 inches, though most compact models are 28 inches wide.
This modern refrigerator may be narrow enough to fit in a small bungalow kitchen, but at 79 inches tall, it needs a lot of overhead clearance.
A good place to compare refrigerators is on the website of the venerable Consumer Reports magazine. They have a special page devoted to narrow models (subscription required; a single-month option is available). In addition to reduced width, the listed refrigerators are usually shallower than standard models—26 inches deep vs. 32 or more.
Of course, there are downsides to narrow refrigerators, the primary one being capacity. The slim models listed on the Consumer Reports website range from 15 cubic feet of interior space to just 7.7 cubic feet (needless to say, freezer capacity can be minuscule). And some of the narrower models gain volume by going up—one is a towering 79 inches tall.
Another drawback of the units listed on Consumer Reports is that they do not have a hint of vintage vibe. If you want something compact but retro, check out the icebox-esque Classic Fridge from Big Chill. They are available in single and double door variants and cost north of $5,000.
A Smeg brand refrigerator in the author’s kitchen. The compact oven and refrigerator occupy the wall that was originally intended for an oven only. The icebox was located in a shallow niche by the back door, as is evidenced by a hole in the floor where a pipe carried melted ice to a drain in the basement.
Finally, consider the retro refrigerators from Italian brand Smeg. The style is more 1950s, but they do look nice. I have had a cream-colored Smeg in my bungalow kitchen for more than a decade, and I love it. (The freezer is tiny, so I also have a second, compact freezer in the basement.)
Smeg refrigerator with hand-painted artwork.
And if you have money to burn, Smeg has partnered with fashion house Dolce & Gabbana for the “Sicily Is My Love” line of refrigerators.” These units are individually hand-painted in 14 eye-popping, retro-Medieval designs. One of these functional works of art can be yours for just $50,000. Interestingly, I paid $54,000 for my modest bungalow back in 1994.
