I don't get it. We are also a family if 4, two teens 15 and 17, and I love our side by side,
Top shelf currently has leftover frozen pancakes, waffles, and frozen pizza dough, and carton of ice cream. Next shelf has frozen chicken, breasts and thighs, which I buy in bulk packages from Costco. Next shelf, ground turkey, beef cubes, and some apple chicken sausage. Sometimes steak, but right now, also frozen turkey (leftover from Thanksgiving, frozen in individual serving sizes). Next shelf, varies, some frozen fruit for smoothies, also from frozen corn we sometimes thrown in tacos, edamame (lots, also from Costco), and bag of 2 pounds frozen shrimp I bought at Giant. The lowest shelf has a frozen snacks the teens eat (chicken nuggets, burritos).

Door has ice packs (we used to put in teens lunchboxes), extra butter, and I am not sure what else.

Tons of room, is organized and I can find everything easily

Hate my side by side. It is fancy, was almost new when we bought the house. Did not make sense to replace it but OMG I hate it! I bought a chest freezer this spring and it helps but it is truly terrible to shop for a family of 4 including a teen and try to do it only once a week and have everything fit. We also have a small fridge but it doesn't keep cold enough to use for more than just bread.

Anonymous wrote:This is so interesting, I was expecting the opposite responses. We have a side-by-side and plan on replacing it with a side-by-side. I find the bottom ones hard to what's in there. Also our kitchen is very small and I worry about being able to open the full size door. But now everyone has me thinking I'm going about this all wrong!

You can get fridges that have double fridge doors and a single freezer bottom drawer.

Side freezers are stupid - half the time they're taken up with the ice maker/door dispenser so you end up with almost no freezer space. We don't have an icemaker because that's always the first thing to break and if you want ice in my house, you can refill the trays like we did when we were kids (after hiking home from our one room school in four feet of snow).

Bottom drawer freezers have two storage areas -- the very bottom and a retracting drawer on top. Make a system for what goes where and it's easy to find what you need. Meanwhile, you have a whole fridge at eye level for use multiple times a day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went from bottom to side when we moved. I can't wait for the side to die so that we can replace it with a bottom.

Same!

+1. i bought my house 10 years ago and there was a brand new side freezer. I find it difficult to use. hard to put stuff in the freezer because it is small but mostly is the fridge part, the shelves are narrow and deep and the result is that things in the back disappear and I constantly find old stuff in the back I did not remember I had. I started putting in plastic containers so I can pull them out and see what is in the back but in general I hate it. last year we rented a large home in the summer with my ILs and in the kitchen there was a bottom freezer refrigerator. the top had two doors and when I opened it I was floored, so much space and I could see clearly what was in the front and in the back because the shelves were large and not too deep.

our fridge works so I cannot justify to just get a new one but sometimes I daydream about getting up at 3am and damage it so then we need to get a new one. I normally don't like spending money but the day it dies I will be jumping around with joy.

Anonymous wrote:Side by side rules! We don't buy frozen pizza, so not an issue. So organized, and easy to find stuff. Plus, I don't want to go digging for items that get lost in a bottom freezer

Do you bake?

I love the bottom freezer because it makes it so easy to freeze things like cookie dough. I can put an entire cookie sheet in there, let everything freeze for a 20 minutes then transfer to a freezer bag. Same goes for dishes like lasagna or broth. Can you imagine that falling on top of each other as you open a narrow freezer? Everything is so much more steady and easily visible with a bottom freezer. Nothing is falling on top of each other. Everything is visible.

Sorry to ruin the consensus here, but I’m team side by side as well. We have both right now. I don’t eat frozen pizza and i like how easily i can see and organize everything in the side by side. Ultimately my dream would be two separate 36” units

Side by side rules! We don't buy frozen pizza, so not an issue. So organized, and easy to find stuff. Plus, I don't want to go digging for items that get lost in a bottom freezer

Side by sides are the absolute worse. They are so narrow nothing fits. We love our bottom freezer.

Anonymous wrote:Have we actually found a topic on which the collective voices of DCUM are in agreement? The unicorn does exist.

I was JUST thinking this. It's a 2020 miracle!

Maybe from now on, if things are particularly contentious in a thread, someone can throw in a "but what about those side-by-side fridges?"

Have we actually found a topic on which the collective voices of DCUM are in agreement? The unicorn does exist.

Anonymous wrote:The issue with side is that you end up with a narrow fridge and a narrow freezer. This is impractical. Go with bottom or top freezer.

I think you're on to something here. If you have a traditional 30 or 36 inch single unit, the freezer is only going to be a foot wide or so. We've got built-ins that are side by side, but the freezer is 18 inches and the fridge is 30 inches, so no problems from a width perspective.

The issue with side is that you end up with a narrow fridge and a narrow freezer. This is impractical. Go with bottom or top freezer.

Anonymous wrote:We went from bottom to side when we moved. I can't wait for the side to die so that we can replace it with a bottom.

Careful what you ask for! I went on a rant last week about how much I hated our side by side. I guess I hurt its feelings because it decided to die earlier this week . It seemed like I was getting what I wanted but of course COVID means fridges are backordered for months. We had to settle for a bottom freezer that we don’t really want While all the ones we really want aren’t available until February.

Oh well...literal first world problems lol

I have one of each - a side by side in our kitchen, and an extra fridge with a bottom drawer in the basement.

Side by side pros:
Works well in our narrow galley kitchen; a full-width fridge door would almost hit the opposite counter and would be impossible to work around.
Lots of shelves make it easy to keep things organized, and see at a quick glance what is in there

Cons:
Can't fit a frozen pizza, full sized lasagna, or baking sheet into the freezer

Bottom drawer pros:
Can fit the frozen pizza, or a baking tray with something spread out to freeze quickly
Room for larger bins to keep things organized

Cons:
Things get lost in the back corners
Takes more effort to keep things organized in bins

If I could only have one, I'd prefer the bottom drawer. It just doesn't really fit in our tiny kitchen.

This is so interesting, I was expecting the opposite responses. We have a side-by-side and plan on replacing it with a side-by-side. I find the bottom ones hard to what's in there. Also our kitchen is very small and I worry about being able to open the full size door. But now everyone has me thinking I'm going about this all wrong!