MAKE A SMEG FRIDGE FOR THE KIDS

The cubby house construction and furnishing has continued at pace following Miranda's comment to me that it has to have a fridge and white walls before she considers it finished. That's cool. She is her mother's daughter!

Making a children's fridge can be pretty boring. If it doesn't actually refrigerate anything, there isn't much to distinguish it from a cupboard. Unless it is a SMEG fridge.

This was much easier to make than I expected. It turned out pretty cute and the kids use it so much, in particular taking things out and then putting them back over and again. Presumably, they must see me doing this a lot in the kitchen. Obviously, I'm not as messy as I think. 

Miranda's suit is a vintage 1950s bathing suit - gah! We got Natalie's little gold ice cream onesie from Square Pear.

Here's how I did it. 

Naturally, you don't have to make it like this. You could use an existing kitchen cabinet, bedside table or shelf as your starting point. You can paint it any colour you like too! For me it was just opportunistic, I found the storage cubes and just went from there.

Supplies needed:

• Two square storage cubes (I found them at the op shop).
• A rectangular shaped piece of MDF cut to size with appropriately rounded corners.
• A silver handle (I used a Prestige Satin Chrome handle from Bunnings).
• SMEG letters (I had them cut by a specialist from acrylic mirror).
• Powder blue colour paint (I used Wattyl E43W 'Athina').
• Foam paint roller (I used the Uni Pro Little Ripper from Bunnings).
• A set of mending plates to join the storage cubes together (I used Zenith Mending Plates from Bunnings).
• Hinges to attach the door to the cubes (I used 2 packs of Prestige Light Cabinet Butt Hinges from Bunnings).
• Glue to attach the letters (I used Araldite, super glue is also fine).

Construction steps:

1. Join your storage cubes together using mending plates.
2. Paint your fridge door using the foam roller. Two coats is plenty.
3. Measure and mark lightly where you want to position the fridge handle and SMEG letters. This is the only hard bit. Measure where they sit on a photo of a real SMEG fridge and then, using ratios, divide that down to come up with the measurements of where they need to sit on your little fridge door. Check by positioning them with blu-tac and staring at it.
4. I needed shorter screws than those provided with the handle because my door was quite thin. I attached the SMEG letters with a tiny dots of glue according to my pre-measured pencil marks.
5. Finally, attach the door to the cubes using the hinges. Try the hinges in place first to make sure the door opens properly. I found that I needed the hinges to sit on the outside of the storage cubes because my door had overhang all the way around. So if I had put the hinges inside like a traditional cabinet, the door would not have opened fully. Mark drill holes with a pencil, pre-drill just a touch and then attach with the screws provided. Make sure your screws are shorter than your door thickness or they will poke through!