No one every says that refrigerators and freezers are lovely. Generally, everyone likes them, they may even covet a specific model because it is bigger, colder, or makes ice and theirs doesn’t, but no one but professional cooks ever say that a refrigerator looks beautiful. Refrigerators have never been designed to be beautiful. They may be sophisticated, they may be stylish, but they were never designed to be beautiful, which is unfortunate, because their predecessor, the ice box, was very beautiful indeed. Antique ice boxes go for quite a bit of money on the auction house, and when you look at it, what is the biggest difference between the ice box and the common refrigerator, besides the technical aspect? The ice box is made of wood. The integrated fridge freezer is the first refrigerator that will actually look good in your kitchen, and may even get the term ‘beautiful’ applied to refrigerators again.
Integrated refrigerators come wood cabinetry and variable handles to match any cabinets you may already have. The best integrated models ‘hide’ in the rest of the cabinets, so your guests have no idea where your refrigerator went. It can be quite fun watching your child’s school friend come over and awkwardly open every cupboard looking for the ‘fridge’ when your child says to grab a cheese stick. The nice thing about them is they are very beautiful, and are just as functional as normal metal refrigerators. The problem with ones that are designed to be hidden through the cabinetry is that they are often a little smaller than normal refrigerators, but most people don’t really notice a difference in usefulness, as the most common use of the extra space in normal refrigerators is expired condiments and rotting leftovers, meaning that by getting a beautiful integrated refrigerator, you will not only get rid of the ugly standard refrigerator, but also cut down on bad smells because there’s not as much space to lose leftovers