Fermentation / lagering question from a newbie

I am going to have to cut corners somewhere and I don't know what the best thing to do is.

I have two different beers fermenting right now but I have only room for one in a fermentation chamber.

A couple of weeks ago I brewed my first lager and now have let it come to room temp in my house for a diacetyl rest. Initially I was thinking that I would go straight from here into a fridge for the lagering phase. I have been doing some more reading and read that I should slowly bring it down to lagering temps.

My problem is that I have an ale in the fermentation chamber right now and it has only been going for a couple of days.

Would it be better to bring the ale out of the fermentation chamber and leave it in the house (air temp around 68) after it has been going for about 5 days so that I can slowly bring the lager down to mid 30s or would it be OK to just put the lager directly into a fridge in the mid 30s.

Thanks for any advice.

Five days on a healthy ale fermentation should get you past the point of concern of nasties being given off by your ale yeast in terms of keeping at a really specific temp. If your ambient air in your house is around 68, I would movd the ale into the house and put the lager, after a good D rest, into the ferm chamber for temp reduction. Good luck.

I would lager directly in the fridge. I always do this and am not sure why it needs to be slowly decreased. The idea is to get it cold enough so the yeast drop out and the beer clarifies. Not to mention liquid cools at a slower rate than air so it's still gonna take a day or so to get to the fridge temp.

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.