About a year ago, Chris and I approached our landlord with the idea of buying a large, American-style fridge. We would buy the fridge, if he would cut a place for it in the existing cabinetry. The fridge that we currently have was just so small for our large family, and really was inadequate. I even mentioned that it was surprising that for such a large apartment they had installed such a small fridge originally. You know, trying to convince him it was a good idea.
But he was very hesitant to make such a permanent change for renters who may move out at any time. We could see his side of it, and decided to let it go. Well, as providence would have it, sometime in October, the sealing rubber around the freezer door completely broke off, making it pretty much useless. Also, anything we put on the top shelf in the fridge would go bad. No cold air was circulating up there anymore. So we once again asked the landlord if we could replace the old broken fridge with an American style one. He was willing to come and “take a look”.
He even asked a carpenter to come look at it, but decided, in the end, that it would be much too costly to do away with all the old cabinetry. However, he would be willing to remove the shelving unit directly above the old fridge to accommodate a slightly larger model. It would have less freezer than now, but more fridge space. We decided that was an okay compromise and waited for the new one to be delivered. And waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, mid-November, we asked the apartment manager when we could expect the new fridge, because the old one really needed replacing. She told us the landlord would be getting in touch with us soon. He did call, a couple of days later, asking to come over and discuss things with us. Not sure what that meant, but set up a time when I knew we would both be home. Apparently, the delay was caused by him not finding anyone available to deliver the fridge how he thought it should be done. He was ordering it from a company on the other side of Switzerland, and they wanted almost as much in delivery fees as the thing cost itself. That ticked him off, and he refused to pay.
All the better for us. He discussed it with his wife, he discussed it with the apartment manager, and together they talked him into going ahead and getting us the big American fridge! He would have to pay alot for the smaller one, with the delivery fees, so he might as well spend that money on a bigger one and use some local men to deliver it. (He bought the larger one from a completely different company, that included delivery to our garage in the price.) Also, as the apartment manager pointed out, our apartment is 4 times as big as any other apartment in the building, yet we have the exact same sized fridge. Regardless of whether we move out or not, anyone interested in renting this size of an apartment, is going to want a bigger fridge. I gave her a big hug for that one!
He also talked with a different carpenter who was able to do the cabinetry work for much cheaper. When he was finished explaining all this to us, he said, “Merry Christmas!” (We were fully prepared to pay for the fridge, or at least part of it. But he paid for everything himself.) I got tears in my eyes, seriously. So, so nice!
On Wednesday, December 8th, was the big day. The fridge had actually been delivered to our garage a week previously, and every time I needed to drive somewhere I would go stroke the box and tell it, “hello”. 🙂 It was seriously a living example of Swiss efficiency. The carpenter and lanlord came at 8 in the morning. (Don’t worry, I was warned of their early arrival ahead of time.) 
Together they ripped out the old fridge, and set it in our hallway. Then the carpenter began cutting and assembling the hole for the new fridge. 
At 9 am, the three moving men the landlord had hired arrived. They took the old fridge downstairs and brought up the new fridge. I got caught behind them on the stairs, as I had left to drop Alexandra off at preschool.
It was a lot of work getting that huge, heavy, giant box up all three flights of stairs. They sort of laid it on it’s side, and two of them pushed it up from the bottom, while another two, held on to the plastic straps wrapped it around it and pulled. (The carpenter helped as well.) They slid it right across the edges of all the stairs, rather than lift it up each step individually. But it still took a lot of effort, and a lot of time. They were all very red faced and out of breath by the time they were done. I saw the landlord give them a nice tip, too. 🙂
And then the carpenter sealed the fridge into place, rebuilt new cabinets in the leftover space, and completely cleaned up after himself. He was out of there and finished by early afternoon, including his hour long lunch break! I was very impressed.
Noah opened up the fridge after I had retrieved everything from the cold bags out on the balcony and put them inside. He said, “Our fridge is so empty! We need to go to the store and fill it up!” So we did. 🙂
Oh, and a super awesome extra bonus? Since it doesn’t have the wood laminate attached to the front to match the rest of the cupboards, we finally have a magnet fridge to attach kids pictures to. No more taping them to all the doors! hallelujiah!