Let’s talk about refrigerators for a minute.
This is what ours looks like:
In a world where stainless is the preferred choice, ours is white.
But that’s not what I want to talk about.
Have you ever noticed that refrigerators in magazines are always bare? They don’t have random photos, calendars, invitations, school work & artwork stuck haphazardly to them. At least not in the photos.
I think Ryan would prefer a cleared off refrigerator. But I rather like the odd assortment of paper goods stuck to ours. It tells me there is life going on in this house.
It is a place to show off my kids’ spelling tests. To display their crazy artwork {a black pumpkin on fire? Not sure what’s going on there :}.
It makes an easy spot to put a few favorite photos, to test out a new art print and to stay organized with our weekly calendar.
And where else do you stick cute invitations?
If I could build my dream kitchen it would probably look a lot like this one:
{via}
I love a restaurant style glass door refrigerator.
{via}
{via}
But for now, we have a white fridge covered in little pieces of our life.
And that’s pretty beautiful, too.
Oh how I love this post Emily!! Its a thought that has entered my mind on so many occasions and your words just resonated with me!
I love the assortment of pictures and notes on our refrigerator. I have a white board on our fridge to keep track of shopping lists, playdates, etc. One day I wrote “I love my husband” just for fun to see if he’d notice; he did and we wrote back, “I love my wife”. It made me so happy I kept our notes up there for weeks and even took a picture so I’d remember forever. I agree with you that it’s a sign of life and love in our home. Long live fridge door decor!!!
drooling over the glass fridge. well, surely someone who makes those magic fridges will see this post and give you one for free. surely. :)
You and I would have the same dream kitchen, but I would have to have a few red accents somewhere. I don’t think I could not have a fridge with out something posted on it.
Wow sounds like theres a few of us who love our fridge doors to be full of ‘love’ while our husbands prefer it the other way…
My fridge is my point of joy in my kitchen. I know others see it as a cluttered mess, but pictures from nephews across 2 countries, cards from loved ones, Wedding invites from dear ones, quotes I don’t want to forget, pink ribbon magnets reminding me of my mums courage… I never want an empty fridge door, I think it would mean my life was bleak :) great post!!!
i have been meaning to do a post about my fridge too..i will call it Idolatry of the Fridge…in all fairness i did need a new fridge..we had a small fridge we bought in grad school when we married..it wasnt a dorm size but it was the smallest full size made..it was terribly small for a family..we had it ten years..i finally got a new fridge this year..counter depth stainless..my dream..it was dented within months..now it has quite a few dents and has terrible fingerprints..i think God made his point…so i try not to covet and dream about fancy laundry rooms too much..ha!
I love to see stuff all over the fridge! It’s so homey.
I love your messy fridge and mine for the same reason! It won’t be long until there are no paintings and spelling lists to post.
I can completely relate! And your comment on the black pumpkin on fire made me laugh.
life is for the living!!
great post, emily!
I join you in the messy fridge brigade!! I LOVE IT!! I love being able to look at pics and reminders of things past and present!!
Have you seen Lauren’s (of Pure Style Home blog) fridge? It’s chalkboard paint! Makes it fun. But I’ve also seen a fridge where they displayed only black/white photos in those clear magnetic frames. It made it look like a mini gallery wall, except on the fridge.
PS Nice burning pumpkin art! So fun.
gosh, joan’s kitchen is so fab. i think it belongs in everyone’s “i wish” folder. there is something so homey about your fridge. i’m sort of a neat freak, so i could never bare having all that stuff on ours. but i think it makes a home feel, well, lived in. love it!
ashley over @
{hookedonhickory}
A friend just got the restaurant style glass front refrigerator. She is miserable. If it’s not “styled” like they would be in a magazine, and filled with Perrier bottles, farm fresh produce and wire egg baskets, it isn’t pretty. Somehow carryout containers and leftovers just don’t look that nice. So if you ever go for that kind of refrigerator, at least get the frosted glass to obscure the sippy cups, tupperware and ketchup containers. :)
My fridge always is covered in notes, photos and lists! I love it! It makes the house feel lived in. Plus, it can be a conversation piece when company is over. I personally love to look at what people have on their fridge doors.
Here, here!
Beautiful…
We live in our home and my home is blessed with children and I want it to look like it! Thanks for sharing.
Put me in the “I have stainless and I’m jealous of your magnetic powers” camp. I’m a saver and a out of sight, out of mind person and would love to be able to clutter up the fridge.
When I was single and had my own apartment, I had the front of my refrigerator covered in those plastic photo frames with the magnet on the back. Loved it.
We use our fridge to post EVERYTHING. Perhaps we go a little overboard, but that’s the only location guaranteed that everyone who needs to will see it. That includes all the random artwork that I just can’t bring myself to throw away. I am a big fan of that fiery black pumpkin you have :)
First, your kitchen is fabulous! So fresh and happy looking. I was the type that had it ALL of the refrigerator until we purchased a stainless one. What in the world would I do with all of my STUFF. I purchased a wall calendar, bulletin board, mail sorter from Pottery Barn and now that is my new spot for all of the real “life” things.
I have a stainless fridge and I WISH I could hang some life on it, but as other’s have said, it’s not magnetic! boo on that.
But more than that, I SO appreciate your contentment. I feel like this blogging world is a dangerous place for us women– a place where we can get sucked into coveting and materialism in the blink of an eye. And while I haven’t been a reader of yours for long, I like how your blog seems to be a mix of appreciating beautiful and creative things, balanced with family, God, and valuing people.
Thanks for that!
LOVE this post! Same at our home…I put it all on the fridge but hubs would rather it bare. But then where oh where would I put all of my fun magnets that I seem to have a fettish for? And the little magnetic man with all of his different clothes that the grandchildren LOVE to play with and yes…the calendar, invites, pics, notes etc. etc.
I happen to have an old dresser in the middle of my kitchen that I lovvvveee for housing dish clothes, towels, knives, etc etc. I had hubs frame out the back and paint it with chalk board paint for the grand kids to write on. They LOVE that! So now my fridge AND my island have stuff all over it. Aside from those two things believe me when I say I keep the rest of the kitchen tip top. well…kind of.
I had this same conversation with my favorite aunt a few weeks ago when I was visiting her house. She apologized for the “clutter” on her fridge, and I told her I loved it…kids’ art, family photos, favorite Christmas cards, etc. She said it’s not neat and tidy and I told her it looks like her life to me…lots of fun, busyness, and great relationships.
I have the best of both worlds with my fridge…it’s stainless on the front, so it’s clean, and we use the painted sides to hang all the fun stuff. It’s not quite so obvious (even though I wouldn’t mind if it was), and we get the best of both worlds.
I’m torn between things on my fridge and a bare fridge. I go thru stages where I add things to the fridge….months later I take everything off. I too LOVE a restaurant style glass door refrigerator….SUCH a dream to have one of those, oneday :)
I have a stainless steel fridge (it came with the house), it is non-magnetic and I “hate” it. It always looks dirty, with fingerprints and water drip marks from the drink dispenser. I also miss putting the little tidbits of our life on the fridge. I always check out other peoples fridges when I visit their home, it tells you so much about others.
We used to have stuff all over our fridge but now our fridge is nonmagnetic too. I am now used to the plain clean look and prefer it to all the clutter we used to have on our fridge.
I’m not a neat person by any stretch of the imagination, but I *never* understood why people put stuff on the fridge…..it’s an appliance. I don’t have stuff on my washing machine or dishwasher. Okay, maybe spilled juice and dust bunnies, but that doesn’t count. I certainly don’t think it’s a “design” no-no, it’s just my personal I-couldn’t-live-with-one-more-surface-collecting-random-bits-before-I-snapped deal. To me a cluttered fridge is like an unmade bed – the whole room looks messy.
But then again, ask me how often I make my bed??
;)
Me gusta your kitchen lady!! Seriously now, let’s switch homes.
I too love the glass door refrigerator but given the state of the contents of my refrigerator, I think I would be stressed out by always making sure the contents looked nice (ie: the eggs in the wrought iron basket in the pic above -really?)! Also, you’d lose all of that valuable shelf space for all those miscellaneous condiments!
Thanks for the fun post!
I love your “life clutter” Our stainless fridge is non magnetic on the front so we can’t hang anything on it unless we tape it.
Yes, this is a beautiful kitchen! And you’re smart to realize the beauty in the fridge you’ve got right now! Enjoy each moment of life!
I find homes with nothing on the refrigerator just as creepy as homes with no books and no family photos. Do real people live in these homes?
i have a stainless fridge and couldn’t hang anything on it because they are not magnetic!! I finally found some sticky clips that work, but I was so used to the bare look, I kept it. BUT, I hung an old enamel table top which is magnetic to show off all that fun stuff!! I think your kitchen is just right!!
your kitchen does look like that kitchen! it’s really gorgeous. And I doubt you’d be happy with a glass door refrigerator- everyone seeing all your food, leftovers, at least our fridge is not the prettiest on the inside. And I love the look of things on the fridge too, but it gets to be a little crazy and forgotten about sometimes :)
LOVE glass door refrigerators, but if the door is glass, where on earth do you put all of the condiments?! I don’t know about you, but our door is chock full of ketchup, hot sauce, mustard, hoisin, oyster sauce, Sriracha, worcestshire, etc., etc., etc! In every kitchen with a glass door fridge, there MUST be another refrigerator (with all of the ugly stuff) around the corner in the butler’s pantry. :)
A home is where you live your life- I love your fridge. :)
The trouble with those stainless steel ones is that they are not magnetic! Some designer somewhere decided to force us to have a clutter free fridge and I don’t like being told what to do by anyone.
Yours looks great in your kitchen. It seems to fit.
I always had lots of photo’s, a calendar, a magnetic shopping list so when we ran out of something the kids could write it down. Then I took everything off. I paired down the photo’s to a few special ones and moved everything to the side where it wasn’t so visible. My husband did not like it at all… :) So now the calendar is back on the front with just a few pictures! Blessings!
AlwaysSewLove
I have a thing for glass fronted fridges….someday. In my dream home! :)
This is my most favorite kitchen…ever. I have stored in my ‘dream kitchen’ files. Love it! :0) But…my frig is full of notes too and I think that makes a house a home.
Many blessings!
Carrie
Our fridge is full of things are girls have made, and little things that I like to look at since I live in the kitchen. I love the mess. My husband hates it. Oh well!
I’m with your hubby…a cleaned off fridge makes my kitchen feel cleaner. :) My handy hubby made me 2 magnet boards that fit on a bare wall close to my fridge. The top board is for me and the bottom one is for all the kiddos art and pictures. It allows me to keep all those fun things, but have my fridge clean also..it’s great!!
I am the one who wishes that we didn’t have so much clutter on the fridge…ours is white, too! I can’t get on board with the glass doors, though…my OCD would keep me up at night arranging things neatly…I think they’re lovely, though!
Those are some beautiful kitchens. But I love yours. I lean to kid friendly being that we have 3. Even more I love that the spelling test has a smiley face & almost written on it !!
I’m with Tonya on her first sentence. The glass doors are beautiful, but I would never want visitors to see the inside of my fridge, let alone have to stare at it all day myself. We do have a stainless fridge, but it is not nearly as clean & stylish as it was meant to be! I thought about this very topic just the other day. Our fridge is a display of “us”, who we are & what we do! The side is covered in photos & birth announcements at the top, and leap frog fridge games dominate the bottom half! The front is all homework & schedules & reminders oh my! But really, would I have it any other way at the stage in the game? I don’t think I could…
You have a beautiful kitchen – white fridge and all! I do love the pictures that you posted. I am currently in kitchen inspiration mode, as at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future, we’ll be expanding ours. Some great inspiration here. I love YOUR breakfast area next to your fridge – great idea!
Those glass door refrigerators are pretty but my fridge is always way too messy inside for me to own one! My husband would also love if I cleaned off all the paper clutter hanging on it but in my small house I just don’t have a spot to hang some of those things. It does look better since I’m using the printables from your monthly kit!
I am so with you on this one, Emily. Our 13-year-old almond Amana refrigerator is not sexy or stylish, the side is half covered in photos and the front has a few postcards and an occasional recipe tacked to it. But I love those photos of family members and places visited, and people who come over always stop to look at them. I can recall only one or two magazine photos in which the fridge had papers on it, and it was nice to see that because it’s real. I also adore glass-fronted refrigerators and hope to have one when we remodel the kitchen one day.
Claudia, My Little Bungalow
Our house has the same divided viewpoints on the refrigerator…but our roles are reversed. I love the clean look of nothing, and my husband would put everything on it…so we do both. The front has nothing on it, and all the papers go on the side. And our refrigerator is white too…it was the first big thing we bought when we married and it is STILL going after 26 years! I keep hoping it will just quit so that we can get one of the beautiful glass door ones. Thanks for the refrigerator eye candy!
I love this post, and we’re the same way! My husband would much prefer it if I would get rid of all of the random things on our refrigerator, but I love the photos, the notes, and the drawings from our nieces! And, I’m sure it’s only going to get worse once we actually have kids!!