If you didn’t catch it, we were recently featured on the home renovation show In With The Old, on Magnolia Network. I’ve been doing a deep dive into each space we tackled. I’ve already covered the two rooms where we’ve put the two appliances I’m talking about today, but I wanted to share more details about the. The first is the retro refrigerator in our office kitchenette and the other is the dishwasher in our main kitchen. We partnered with Forté Appliances and I’m going to tell you all about it.

Here’s how it goes!

____________________

Click here for all the before and after photos from the home renovation
See the full kitchen renovation here
Read about the kitchen cabinets here
Click here to read more about the kitchen hardware.
If you’re interested in seeing the oven, click here.
See how we turned the fridge into a cabinet
When I was planning out our studio kitchenette renovation for In With the Old (on Magnolia Network), I knew a space so small would pop with great color and amazing details. I talked more about the theme for the design in this post, but to remind you, I imagined a layered cake oozing with frosting sitting in a Parisian bistro. There’s also a retro diner quality to it that I wanted to play with, hence the choice of retro-style refrigerator, which I’m talking about today.

Forté Appliances Review

We partnered with Forté on the dishwasher in our main kitchen and the retro style refrigerator in the office kitchen and I’ve had a great experience with both, but let me tell you first about the adorable retro style fridge.

Retro style Fridge by Forte review

Once I imagined the Parisian bistro with a dash of retro dinner, it was much easier to go looking for all the details. I found Forté, an appliance brand who had this very special retro refrigerator and it was game over. I loved the style, how narrow it was for the use that we needed, and it fit the perfect amount of food.

Kitchen planning

Prior to this I was thinking of doing an under the counter fridge or a small panel ready fridge to go underneath and continue the counter all the way across the whole wall. I still like that idea, but I love having a slightly larger fridge.

The purpose of this fridge was to serve as a spot where the team could put their food and also act as an overflow for our own fridge upstairs. It’s really too big of a fridge for the first need, but perfect for both.

We actually have a fridge/freezer in the garage as well that came with the house. We use it for our main second storage, but how many fridges is too many?! So, we’re planning on selling that one soon.

Retro fridge colors

Now, you know me. You know I was so stoked to see that Forté had a ton of fun color options. At the time of ordering they had less options, but they still had the pale blue and the mint green. It was hard to imagine what our tile was going to look like with the pink floors. I was also considering painting the shelves (still am!) so I decided to keep it to the classic cream. In another world and time I’d take any one of these colors! How cute are they?!

Forté fridge specs

We got their 450 series that’s 24″ wide with 11.65 cubit feet. It’s counter depth so it’s flush with the rest of the cabinets. There are 3 glass shelves, a crisper drawers, energy star certified. We really love it! And honestly, it’s so cute that I gasp every time I see it. There’s even little inserts for drinks and eggs–score! It’s a bonus that it works great too!

Cherry on top

Of course, the fridge was the perfect spot for our cherry on top. With a cake theme you have to go all out!

Forte Panel Ready Dishwasher review

Now, the dishwasher in our main kitchen. We got their 24″ 450 Series which has room for ten place settings. They have a number of different functions for washing the specific types of items as well as delay start. I do find that because the buttons are on top of the drawer we accidentally hit them a lot. And once you press the delay start button you have to scroll through all 24 hours to get back to 0.

Because it’s panel ready, you can add any panel on top of it. Initially we put on a panel to match the rest of the cabinets, but our cabinet maker got the dimensions wrong so that when you open the dishwasher, it hits the bottom of the toe kick, so we have to replace it. Because of that we’re thinking of doing something fun like in brass or something.

The size is a bit smaller than our previous one so if I were to do it again, I’d probably get the 650 series which is now available. BUT, it does mean that we do the dishes more frequently, which is probably a good thing ;).

It runs very quietly and cleans well and we’ve had a good experience!

Let me know if you have any questions! Happy to answer them.

See this post for all the sources!

These products were gifted by Forté appliances