We had high hopes for our under bench fridge, in my dreams it was a black smeg bar fridge, everytime I would go to fetch a beer we would share a moment, he would gently hum as if to say "thanks for choosing me" and I would sigh and say "thanks for being you". But I was immediately torn from my sweet fridge dream when I saw what he would cost me! More than my first car! Not that that would be hard...but still, that's besides the point. I couldn't, nay, I WOULDN'T pay that much for a cold box. (Ok to be honest it's pretty much "I couldn't", we totally do not have dispensable fridge monies lying around) so we started looking for alternatives and found a pretty cool retro smeg-looking fridge called a Husky, we saw it at Harvey Norman on some super special for around $600, but at the time we had just bought a washer and dryer and we had the money spending shakes already, so we left it behind.
Since that day, there have been many more days when I have said "let's go get that fridge" and there have been days when Guy has agreed.... And on those kinda days, you've never seen a girl get ready and in the car so quick, because an extra minute covering that chin zit could cost you a change of mind, you must move swiftly, Taylor Swiftly. Alas, when we would get to the store, it was never on special ever again. It was either $999 or $749 and that may not seem like a big deal if your name is not Mr and Mrs Nurse but we have a mental road block when it comes to paying any more than what we have seen it for in the past. The Husky was a goner...... erm, Literally, it has now been discontinued apparently, Ha!
So we were back at our empty hole under the island bench. What would become of it? All it did at the moment was house Jed's water bowl and give him and excuse for lurking in the kitchen "who me? No, no I'm not waiting for scraps to fall to the floor, I was thirsty, so thirsty, just looking for my water bowl, oh I found it, lap lap lap *side eye* lap lap". I was desperate to fill the void and get a fridge... Then I came across a dusty old Kelvinator in the shed, no one is 100% sure where it came from, an orphan fridge. So I decided to give it the Annie treatment and show it that tomorrow was only a day away and it was going to be spruced up and loved by our family and it's forever home. If I couldn't have a Smeg fridge because my wallets weren't deep enough/are fake pockets that are sewn shut then I would freaking well make my own smeg.... And we will call it the SHMEG because smeg shmeg, our beers will be just as cold.
Blah blah blah, geez I go on. Here's what I did.
Find suitable hole under bench.
Find dusty kelvinator in a shed and give it a good clean
Meet your new best friend, I LOVE this stuff and have gone through bottles of it, it sticks to any metal with crazy intensity and dries a really great matte black. You can also get a top coat in this range in a matte black but the primer gives such a great finish! Tip, etching primer that is brushed over top of etching primer.....removes etching primer. Moral of that story, stick to these spray cans and not the little pottle of paint.... Learned during the painting of our flashings. I sprayed two coats on the kelv.
Buy stick on letters, I couldn't find any brass letters that went beyond A B C so I settled with these red reflective jobs for $2 each and I gave them a coat of etching primer before spraying them with
I would have used a specific brass coloured spray but Christmas had stolen all the bottles so I went with gold. It's important to spray them with the etching primer first, the normal paints just won't stick. I gave them one coat of primer and 3 coats of gold. Remember to leave the adhesive on the back until you've sprayed and dried them all (bit of a no brained but you never know, too much eggnog or something like that)
This is what it looked like at first, I got a little over eager and got straight into the sticking. After a few hours of looking at it and thinking "something's not right...and I don't mean the h", I realised the letters were too close is just before we sat down for dinner I ripped them off and did it again.
Tadaaaaaaa! We love him. He keeps our beers cold and our hearts warm.
* by the way if you just have an ugly fridge that could benefit from a splash of matte black without the lettering, that spray is seriously so good.
I bought everything from Mitre 10 Mega, aka the place that absorbs allllll the monies!
