Containing the Frig

All those who hate things falling out of your RV refrigerator, raise your hand.

Loading the refrigerator in our Class C for a three-week trip became a game of Tetris while I utilized every inch of precious space in that thing.  Then we bought our new to us Phaeton and holy cow, it was like moving from a studio apartment to a mansion!  The residential refrigerator is huge with a capital H!  Now I stand at the open refrigerator door thinking that I can’t possibly have enough food for this trip and have all this space remaining.

I’ve seen countless posts on different RV Facebook pages about how to properly contain everything in the refrigerator.  Luckily we haven’t had any mishaps with items falling out of the refrigerator, except for one small watermelon.  Thank goodness it didn’t break open when it landed, just a good sized crack.  I know we can’t be the only people with good refrigerator luck, there has to be others out there.  Maybe they’re just being coy and don’t want to share their secrets.

 

Well, not me.

These tips are by no means cast in stone, steadfast rules to follow.  I am not preaching from the mount.  It’s simply what works for us.  And it all starts with the beer.

In our old Class C, space was a huge premium and beer never even made it into the frig.  Beer, water and soda were confined to a big ice chest that rode just inside the door.  Now Mark’s beer rides inside the frig on the bottom shelf.  The key here is to keep it in the original packaging.  We can get a 30-pack of cans and a 12-pack of bottles on that bottom shelf.  That’s not the norm, I swear.  There was a special on two beers he likes so I was wife of the year and bought them both.

I have a love/hate relationship with the two fruit & vegetable drawers.  Sometimes they perform beautifully, too often though they freeze whatever healthy delectable I put in.  So, the deli drawer mid-frig often ends up being used for stuff we don’t want frozen.  I recently discovered that the sliders for those two pesky drawers, when positioned so the vents are completely closed, can slow down the freezing of said drawers.  It hasn’t been foolproof yet so I’m reserving judgement.  But if that’s the biggest problem we have in our RV, I will not complain.  Those big drawers are good for lunchmeat, cheese, loose cans of beer or anything else that you’re happy with being super-duper cold or a little frozen.

Big containers like milk, juice, wine and anything glass always go in the door.  I think I would have a heart attack if I opened the door either while in transit to perform my flight attendant duties or right after arriving at a campground, and a bottle broke after falling out of the frig.  There aren’t enough cleaning wipes in the world to clean up a broken bottle of ketchup in an RV.  For us, anything that can break or make a massive mess belongs in the door.  Fingers crossed as we are batting a thousand here.

Here’s the funny thing; a carton of eggs rides perfectly still on the top shelf.  I cannot tell you the magic that happens between the cardboard egg container and that glass shelf, but the carton does not move, ever.  The other item that gets top shelf real estate is a Barro’s box of pizza.  It’s become our travel meal.  While Mark is hooking up whatever we are towing this trip, I’ll quickly run around the corner to Barro’s and pick it up.  It’s an easy meal that I can microwave for him while on the road and it also make a great leftover lunch the next day.  Seriously, if you haven’t thought about fetching a pizza before you leave, you should.

Other food items for our trip find homes on the remaining shelves.  I try not to stack things too high to avoid any fall over mess in transit.  I am not opposed to the fun sport of wedging.  What’s wedging?  It’s merely wedging items into a small space so they’ll stay put.  The key is not to hurt said item.  Thankfully, I don’t need to play that game very often.

Back to the watermelon.  Where oh where does a perfectly round watermelon ride after falling out one time?  Behind the beer of course.  I turn the beer container and slide the watermelon behind it.  The weight of the beer keeps the watermelon in place, all round and perfect and ready to be cut up at a later date.

So there you have it.  The deep dark secrets of my RV refrigerator open to the world.

What are your tried and true refrigerator success stories?  Tell us in the comments section below!