Your Kitchen: Spot the Refrigerator
Celebrate your beautiful new cabinetry with a matching finish for the fridge
You are about to spend a small fortune on renovating your kitchen and installing new cabinets and appliances. The refrigerator is one of the biggest elements in your kitchen. Instead of letting it steal away attention from your new cabinets, consider using this opportunity to have cabinets fronts made to camouflage your refrigerator into the rest of the kitchen composition. Take a look at these gorgeous examples.
The designer of this room could have installed a stainless steel refrigerator and called it a day. Instead, the focus is all about materials and finishes. A cool and collected palette of medium wood, gray tile, gray granite counter, and stainless steel hardware and appliances is what this kitchen is all about. The large face of the refrigerator has been enveloped in wood matching the other cabinets. Even the door handles mimic the shape of the cabinet pulls.
One more study in eye-catching material combinations: cherry wood cabinets with vertical aqua tile back splash. Again, the designer had fun with colors and design only after expertly figuring out how to hide that refrigerator.
The large and tall refrigerator face is balanced by an equally large and tall cabinet on the other side of the counter. Which is the fridge? Can you tell at first glance? Symmetry in forms creates balance in this kitchen composition.
An interesting application of this concept is to make your refrigerator look like a built-in armoire. The intricate details and multi-paneled symmetrical design goes the extra mile in hiding the fridge beyond.
I love this hidden refrigerator because while it's well hidden, it's still in plain sight, which makes for a playful design element. This built-in creates the armoire look so well with its faux drawer fronts below. The fact that its high gloss dark wood finish matches the kitchen island — but none of the other white cabinets — makes for a jaw-dropping space.
Black and white is a hot color combo in modern homes, and the high drama is in fine form in this modern kitchen. If you are going to the dark side with black cabinets anyway, the black paneled refrigerator feels just right.
Here the black-paneled fridge and black cabinets allow the wood island and those fabulous bar stools to become the main focus of the room. It is still a dramatic space, but the wood island and the patterned fabric soften the space and give it a lot of personality.
This small kitchen uses an all-white palette to feel bigger. A white refrigerator would have worked fine. Using white shaker style panels to match the cabinetry makes this kitchen feel more thoughtful and loved.
Do you have a super special feature in your kitchen such as a fireplace or decorative glass collection that you would like to be the focus of the room? The white paneled refrigerator disappears into the wall in this example, and the red glass and brick shine.
Next: More kitchen design ideas
Browse options for kitchen cabinets
Next: More kitchen design ideas
Browse options for kitchen cabinets
Correction: According to the designer, this is the family room with a galley kitchen in the next room. Regardless, the finish selections and concept of hiding the refrigerator in a separate wall niche are still viable even if this example is not exact.