It’s in (by a sixteenth of an inch)

It made it by that much.

Our old fridge was fine. It just didn’t have a working ice maker. Or water dispenser in the door. Or an exterior color that matched the rest of our appliances.

But it did work. Milk was cold. Frozen pizzas were frozen.

At a January party, though, Sarah told us they had a nearly-new fridge just sitting in their garage — black, ice maker, water dispenser, French doors — a fine upgrade.

“My husband’s parents bought us get a new one as a housewarming gift,” Sarah said, “so we’re just going to put this one on Craigslist soon if we can’t find anyone to take it. Would you guys want it?”

“How much?” we asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. What should a used fridge cost? What if we charged you $150 and made you take us out for drinks a couple times?”

SOLD.

First step: Will it fit? The old fridge was pretty small and came with the place when we bought our house. I emailed the old owners and asked how they got it in.

“It was here when we moved in,” Tiffany said. “And those doors are narrow. So good luck. Tell me how it goes.”

So, we measured the new fridge and the space in our kitchen. No problem. Then we measured the door frame. Uh oh.

Side door was immediately ruled out. Too narrow. Plus, how would we lift it up the steps in the kitchen? Front door would be our only hope. We could definitely get it inside. But the problem was going to be the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.

Width of doorframe: 29 inches.
Depth of fridge with doors removed: 29 inches.

At one point, I think we weighed the pros and cons of just leaving it in the dining room permanently.

After another couple weeks of nervous hand-wringing where we officially ruled out having it transported by a moving company (“Two-hour minimum?! All I need is for you to lift a fridge off the truck!”), Dad finally rented a trailer and we drove over to the Hansens’ house, committed to taking it off their hands, but not yet sure what we would do when we got home with it.

We had to unhinge the front storm door, and take off both wooden entryway doors just to get the fridge into the living room. Then the surgery began in the kitchen.

Removed the oven handle. Fridge still didn’t fit.
Removed the oven knobs. Didn’t fit.
Removed the brackets holding the fridge feet. Didn’t fit.
Removed the metal plate covering the back of the fridge. Didn’t fit.

We were running out of options. Our last hope seemed dangerous — removing the cardboard we had installed as padding to protect the wood of the door frame and granite on the countertop. Plus, the whole process was taking “longer than it should,” which is my ultimate frustration with projects around the house. I was getting crabby and impatient. We were removing quarter-inch sheets of cardboard from the edge of the doorway, so of course I was skeptical. It still wasn’t going to fit.

But, a couple furious extra shoves later, the fridge finally hopped over the lip of the kitchen tile and groaned its way through our narrow passageway.

An hour’s worth of deep cleaning later, we had ice cubes crashing into the reservoir and water splashing into our glasses.

No, literally, SPLASHING. There’s something wrong with the pressure to the dispenser. Water is shooting out like a laser.

But that just gives me another excuse to head to the hardware store.