Kitchen Makeover: DIY Refrigerator Cabinet

Most kitchen appliances and cabinets are standardized to fit with each other. Standard base cabinets are 34.5" high and 24" deep, and appliances such as dishwashers, ovens and ranges are sized appropriately so that they fit under or even with the counters and sit flush with the cabinets. Refrigerators, however, have been excluded from this standardization. In most kitchens, the fridge is like a Ford Expedition parked in a "compact car only" space.

Recently, cabinet-depth refrigerators have become available. These are great for two reasons - they sit flush with the cabinets, and they're not so deep that you need a search and rescue team to get to the leftovers that got pushed to the back. Alas, they are expensive - easily twice or three times the price of a regular fridge.

So most of us are left with an ill-fitting refrigerator. The fridge sticks out 8" or 10" past the cabinet fronts, but leaves a gap on the top and sides unless you buy a huge model. To add insult to injury, the fridge is topped with a little cabinet that could be useful... if only we could get to it. A 12" deep cabinet on top of a 32" deep refrigerator is not easy to reach.

Such was my situation. And while the gap provided a convenient place to store my Swiffer WetJet (an awesome invention, by the way), I wanted better access to the cabinet.

Building a cabinet around the fridge seemed like the best solution. I would just need a sheet of plywood to make the side of the cabinet; the hurdle was that the plywood would be too big to fit in my car. Brainstorming ideas in the shower one day, I suddenly remembered I had two doors sitting unused in my basement. I'd removed them while doing some demolition. Yay! There was my solution!

I brought one of the doors up, removed the doorknob, and attached it to the end of the counter. I covered it with beadboard wallpaper painted black to match the cabinets.

To support the trim on the other side, I attached a simple 1" x 2" board to the wall.

I pushed the fridge back in place and placed the cabinet on top.

Then I simply trimmed it with door casing and crown molding.

The top cabinet now sits only a few inches back from the front of the refrigerator, just enough to clear the fridge door hinge. I can access the cabinet contents easily. :)

And I think it looks nicer, too.

Total cost of this project was about $22, which was spent on the trim. I had the paint and wallpaper on hand. (If you didn't happen to have an unused door sitting in your basement, you'd probably pay about $35-40 for a sheet of 3/4" plywood.)