Saturday, February 23, 2008

Small Space Saturday: Small Fridge Update

On Saturdays I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet

Back in August, I wrote about our incredibly small refrigerator. The gist of that post was how using bins in the fridge made the space more usable.



Today, Sean is defrosting the refrigerator. We selected the Novakool because it runs on 24 volts and is super-efficient, drawing about 2-3 amps when running, with duty cycle varying by how often we open it. Part of why it draws so little power is because it is not self-defrosting. Since our preference is to boondock as often as possible, defrosting the fridge occasionally is a price we are willing to pay for the increased efficiency. I say "we," but Sean performs this chore, so it works particularly well for me.

Because most of the food is corralled into the plastic bins, all he had to do was pull out four containers to completely empty the fridge.



With the food packed tightly into the bins and the bins placed close together on the counter, the food should stay cool for the 30 minutes or so it takes him to finish this project. When he's done, he'll just slide the bins back into their proper place. Fast and easy.

Another bonus: the fridge will be organized exactly as it was yesterday, with almost no nagging effort. Meaning, exactly the way I want it to be. If you are the one who puts away the groceries and/or leftovers, you understand what I'm talking about. "Honey, why did you put the ketchup in the vegetable crisper?"

So there you go, several more reasons to use bins to organize your refrigerator.

5 comments:

  1. Being a newer reader of your blog, I hadn't seen the frig bins idea. I love it. While my frig seems to be doing okay (I leave two bars in to contain things), my freezer is horrible. Every time I open the door things come crashing out. I'm going to measure and get some bins. Thank you!!

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  2. My wife and I use bins in our stand alone big freezer at the house, keeps things all nice and neat in there as well. Instead of having to dig through heaps of frozen veggie bags, we just pull out the bin to select what we want. It is doubly helpful since we bag and freeze our own veggies too, and smaller ziplock bags tend to slide around more than commercial ones.

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  3. @Froggi: Glad to know this was helpful to you.

    @Ned: Ziplock bags are the best! One of these days I'm going to write about my love for the ziplock...

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  4. I think I love you. My freezer is forever a disaster as the kids pillage for hidden ice cream.

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  5. I never thought to use plastic tubs like that in my fridge. Thanks for the idea :)

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