Finally pulled the trigger on a new fridge after weeks of measuring

We did the same dance last spring with our kitchen alcove. Mine measured 33 inches wide at the top but only 32 and a half down near the floor becasue of a warped base cabinet, which took me two trips to the hardware store to figure out. Ended up with a basic Whirlpool top freezer and even then I had to pull the doors off in the hallway to get it thru the doorway. If your path from the front door to the kitchen has any tight turns, measure those too, not just the opening itself. One thing that surprised me was how much room it needed to breathe at the back. The manual called for a gap behind the coils, so I ended up losing more depth than the spec sheet suggested. Wish I'd factored that in before ordering instead of discovering it on install day.

On the features side I mostly agree with you, though I kept the ice maker out entirely. Our old ice maker was the only thing that ever went wrong on that fridge, and the ice always tasted like the freezer anyway. A couple of ice trays cost nothing and there's one less water line to spring a leak behind the cabinet.

The door swing thing is real too. Ours had to hinge on the left because of a wall on the right, and reversing it after delivery would have meant another service call, so checking that before ordering saved me a headache.

Funny how the depth issue plays out differently depending on the kitchen. My old fridge was recessed into an alcove with a bulkhead above it, so I actually needed the extra depth just to clear the upper cabinet overhang. I went with a GE standard depth model and the doors sit about three inches proud of my counters, which bothered me in the store photos but honestly doesn't in person. I actually like it now because the handles sit right where my hand lands coming around the island.

One thing I'd add about the floor being uneven: my installer spent twenty minutes with the level and a wrench on the front leveling feet before he was happy, and that made a bigger difference in how the doors closed evenly than anything else. The doors wanted to drift on their own until he got it dialed in. Also nobody's hinge situation worked out the way the brochure diagrams suggested, mine included. The fridge I bought had reversible doors and we flipped them right in the driveway before bringing it in. Saved me from living with a door that blocked the pantry.

Lurking here for a while and this thread is making me feel better about my own fridge hunt. I'm dealing with a slot next to a pantry wall instead of an alcove, and the thing I keep second-guessing is the leveling legs. The floor in my kitchen slopes toward the exterior wall, so even if the box fits the space on paper, the front feet have to come down enought to level it, wich eats up clearance I don't really have. Is that something you both ran into, or was your floor flat enough that it wasn't a factor? Not sure if I should order and hope or find a showroom model to eyeball first.

Update: got it installed last weekend and everything fit the way I measured it. The comment about leveling legs hit home since our floor slopes a bit too. I had the fridge rocking side to side untill I spent ten minutes dialing the front legs down properly. Once it was sitting solid, the doors swung and closed on thier own like they should. Ice maker kicked in the next day.