Refridgerator Makeover

I wasn't planning on posting about the fridge, so I didn't take a "before" picture, but it looked a lot like this one...

 

So here is my story how I turned an outdated eye sore into my favorite thing in the kitchen!

 

 

I decided to cruise Pinterest looking for horror stories of painting appliances. I wanted the rust issue to stop, but if I could make our mismached kitchen look a little better, that would be ok too. I found a ton of people posting about painting the fridge with chalkboard paint. I love the tutorial at My Simple Home Life. 

 

With my new stainless steel dishwasher sitting by the sofa waiting to be installed, I started looking at a new stainless steel fridge too. The cheapest one rings in at about $1000! Woah... thats a lot of shoe shopping I could do! Then I stumbled upon this awesome faux stainless steel contact paper type stuff.

 

Of course when I have inspiration, I have to do it NOW, so ordering the film and waiting just wasn't going to happen. While having no luck with faux stainless at Lowes, I found this awesome faux stainless with a twist backsplash instead. I remember seeing it used to cover a dishwasher and loving it...... BUT to cover my big refridgerator, I would need 6 panels at a whopping $19 a piece! No thanks! But I had an idea.... My husband is always scared of my ideas.

 

My wonderful neighbor introduced me to textured wallpaper. So, while at Lowes,  I grabbed some of that, "stainless steel" spary paint, and some white epoxy paint and set off with this crazy idea that could just possibly ruin my fridge.... whatever... no big deal.

 

 

First, we had to pull the fridge outside to paint it with the epoxy... it was at night... it was 35 degrees..... I'm so smart. But you know... I HAD to do it right then.. so I did. You probably want it to be a tad warmer for the paint to work best. The epoxy did the job of making the sides prettier and stopping the rust issue. My husband said just to paint the entire thing white, but I can't be simple and easy.... its just not in my blood.

 

At this point, my kitchen looked like this....

 

partially painted frdige... dishwasher waiting by the sofa to be installed

 

I was in love with those expensive backsplash panels. To create that same look.....I cut the wallpaper to fit the three panels of my fridge, then took them outside and sprayed them with the stainless steel paint. Being a artist, I have strange things around the house and thankfully had some spray adhesive handy. You can find it at walmart for about $5. Make sure its NOT washable... I used 3M's general purpose adhesive and crossed my fingers.

 

 

I put one panel up and left it alone for a few hours to test the durability of the adhesive and it didn't budge so I slapped up the other two panels.

 

 

 Once the dishwasher was installed, the kitchen became happily mixed-matched and for less than $40 I got a new refidgerator! Thats a lot better than a $1000!