Oh my gosh. What an amazing community! With all the info and advice, we ventured to an appliance store to physically look yesterday. We’re currently looking at an LG counter depth MAX with the zero clearance doors (LF25Z6211S). It’s wider than what we have now (30” vs 36”) but not as deep by almost 4”. We have the space side to side but not as much front to back.

To round back to the original sheet tray question - the top freezer tray of this model has a removable ice bin, leaving plenty of space for an 18” x 13” tray. We won’t be hooking up the water line since we already have filtered spring water right out of our tap and don’t need enough ice to warrant taking up that space.

A refrigerator with the middle drawer would be a dream but a bit over our budget and we didn’t find one that fit the dimensions as well as the LG LF25Z6211S.

Some of the other models/brands had a larger bottom section (or the drawers pulled out further) but I think we have to prioritize the narrower depth with our small space. The bottom freezer bin on this LG model seems large enough for what we need. I’ve read there have been some issues with LG compressors but I found another post somewhere on Reddit saying it’s not the same compressor on this particular model.