Meet Our Vintage Fridge

When you buy a vintage car, people think it's very cool.

When you get excited about vintage office supplies, people think you are a bit odd, but they let it slide.

When you use vintage enamelware for cooking, they love it.

When you score a vintage paint by number for a $1, and then transform it, they are stoked for you.

But when you tell people you want to buy a vintage fridge, people suddenly turn into naysayers.

Here's what the naysayers said: you'll have to defrost it, old fridges are too small, the seals don't work anymore, they're impossible to get repaired, and the most popular,  it will cost a fortune to run.

Oh, there were a few loyal supporters out there.

But most everyone else thought we were crazy.

After all, it's one thing to say "life's too short to be practical", but it's an all together different thing when you want to be impractical about a fridge.

But we didn't care.

Instead, Aaron kept searching Craig's List (for months), and after seeing lots of amazing fridges but none that were quite right, meeting up with someone who tried to rip us off, contemplating a wild goose chase down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere for a free, vintage fridge, and borrowing our wonderful, friend Paul's truck 3 times, we finally found The One.

I have long admired (loved, longed for, coveted) this line of fridges from Big Chill.
I especially love the Retropolitin.
It is vintage without looking too kitchy.
You may be laughing at this point, but I don't want my kitchen to look kitchy--no Ruby's diner for me.
I know, I know, I have boomerang counter tops, but you won't see a single vintage coca cola sign in my kitchen.
Anyway.
Back to the fridge.
So the fridge I really wanted for our kitchen remodel was a Big Chill.
But we didn't have an extra $3000 laying around.
And. let's face it, any new fridge, even if we could afford a really nice one, just doesn't have the look we love.
You might not have noticed, but we're not on board with the whole stainless steel thing.
That's when Aaron decided to look for a vintage fridge.
There were so many beautiful vintage fridges out there, and they were the expensive ones.
There were so many trashed fridges out there, and they were too far gone to save.
I loved all the beautiful, curvy, 1950s fridges, and there were lots of those.
The 1960s fridges with the more modern lines were harder to find.
But Aaron didn't give up.
We've learned that if you just keep looking, and if you're willing to be patient, you'll find the thing you are looking for.
We so did!
And we love her, and think she's just beautiful.

She fits in perfectly with our kitchen.
Our old fridge was more squat and stodgy, and stuck out a few more inches.
This one is taller and more slender, and let me tell you, those 3 or 4 inches gained in my kitchen make a huge difference.
This fridge just looks like it was made for this space.
To make the deal even sweeter, this fridge was in mint condition.
Take a look.
I hardly had to clean it.
It's more than 50 years old, people!

I love the adjustable, wire shelving.
Those crisper drawers on the bottom are enameled.
And they're turquoise!
They aren't flimsy plastic that will crack--they're solid.
And, it's full of all kinds of beautiful, modern details.
Coolest butter door ever?
Yes.

Light, spinning temperature dial and cool font--in turquoise!

More turquoise!

The kids favorite part is the door and it's space for 2 dozen eggs.
My favorite part of the door is that it is a pale turquoise.
Love it!

The freezer is on the bottom, which I like so much.
It is all fancy smancy with an automatic ice maker (still haven't used it).

I love that the original ice bucket is still in the freezer--in perfect shape, of course.

Aaron really liked the handles on the fridge and how well they go with the original hardware on our original kitchen cabinets.
Look at those curvy lines.
Gorgeous.
Side note.  Our old fridge had plastic handles that were impossible to keep, and then get, clean.
This fridge wipes down like a dream.

Even the grill at the bottom of the fridge is a beautiful design.
All the details were considered.

We've had the fridge for a few weeks now and it is a dream.
Our previous fridge, only about 5 years old, was a nightmare.
It was a complete wreck, the seals didn't work, the crisper drawers were cracked, it was impossible to clean, and the worst part was that it leaked like mad.
At one point Aaron built a sort of support brace out of Legos to help hold up the pan in the back of the fridge to keep the water from pouring out while we were gone for a few days.
It was a joke.
Even though it wasn't an expensive, top of the line fridge, it was not old enough to be in such bad shape.
Our new, vintage fridge however, is American made at a time when things were made to last.
It has so far.
And I'm feeling pretty good about it lasting a while longer.
When I filled up the fridge with our food, Aaron said, "we need more Pyrex for this fridge.  That's it, you can buy as much Pyrex as you want for the new fridge."
You heard it here folks!
I'm going estate sale shopping tomorrow!

And for all you naysayers out there, here are the stats: we don't have to defrost this fridge, it's far bigger than our old fridge--it's huge, in fact, the seals work great, and our fridge repairman said these old fridges run forever.
The only thing we don't know about yet is the energy usage.
The first bill should be arriving any day.
I'll let you know if you were right on that one.
So I won't stick my tongue out at you.
Yet.
And, yes, I promise to be honest.
I owe it to my fellow impracticals.
You might want an old fridge of your own one day and you need to know all the details.
In the end, I like the way our fridge looks so much better than the Big Chill.
The price tag is much better too--$400 instead of $3000.
I think we scored.
Love from,
Greta