How to Add Panels To A Regular Refrigerator
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- Опубликовано: 3 мар 2022
- We're sharing how we turned our regular refrigerator into an integrated (panel) refrigerator, without spending a lot of money!
You can see more details in this blog post, we recommend reading this for extra details:
themerrythought.com/?p=26417
How we made our wood panel:
• How to Make Shaker Cab...
Supplies:
- wood panel (we made our panel, see above)
- integrated fridge door mounting slide kit (we used a total of 8 slides: rstyle.me/+OPbH3Q2_b7kac8lSzf...)
- corner braces (rstyle.me/+YfPJX1P1Ww4USnntIk...)
- hinges - the exact ones we bought are no longer available, we used non-mortise hinges, something like these (amzn.to/46R4Y8i) or these (amzn.to/46ROHzB).
- knobs/handles for fridge
- screws
There's lots of comments about ventilation, here's what we did: You'll want to make sure your fridge has ventilation so air can flow around it. Vents in the front and back are ideal. (Check with a professional if you're not sure on how refrigerators should be vented. Your fridge manual should say as well). Our fridge has the vent in the front, at the toe kick, which you can see in the video. Our laundry room is directly behind where our refrigerator is; we were able to push it back a few inches into that space to give us more room in the kitchen. We also added a vent into the wall behind the fridge when we did this for ventilation. There's also a few inches between the fridge and the sides of the cabinet for plenty of air flow (you can see that in the video).
Here's how we put a panel on our regular dishwasher:
• DIY Dishwasher Panel -...
Here's how we made our custom inset kitchen cabinets:
• How To Make Inset Cabi...
More of us:
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I love how you did this. Can I ask how you manage ventilation for the fridge?
Our fridge vents out the back (the wall behind is our laundry room, so we were able to push the fridge slightly into that space and will have a wall with vents in it once we finish that part of the remodel). We also have the toe kick vent, which my husband made a wood vent cover for that we painted the same color as the cabinets.
@@TheMerrythought that's clever!
Holy smoke… every tutorial video should be just like this! I was researching for readability and how-to before updating our kitchen and dang… this was perfect!!
Well, as a professional kitchen designer, I was very skeptical at first… a really good job. I’m very impressed.
Yeah, they did a great job. I’m doing this exact thing on my house. I looked at panel ready refrigerators and you’re really paying for the name. The consumer report said some of these namebrand Vikings are not even worth it.
Very slick install. These folks obviously did their homework to come up with the very elegant, tasteful solution (and paint color) depicted here. (And their dishwasher treatment is likewise awesome). Fine trim carpentry with nothing wonky going on to spoil the overall effect. I thought I was doing my homework, but I was still scratching my head and coming up empty until I stumbled upon this vid, so much appreciation goes out to them.
You may have noticed that to get this type of install in the U.S, you'd also need to shell out millions of dollars for a mansion, or many thousands of dollars for the type of pre-configured integrated unit from brands typically not advertised to the masses. (Upwards of $15k in some cases.) But these RUclipsrs came up with something just as worthy of attention for way less money, which was the slickest thing of all about this.
The link for the "sliders" (as I'll call them) was out of stock, and unbelievably, these gizmos aren't marketed in the U.S. by anyone. I went to the UK version of Amazon, where I found a pair for $18 delivered. (About 6 weeks delivery time.) You can have them delivered for about $2 if you're willing to wait about an additional month. (Total cost in that case about $10.)
The Amazon UK site has oodles of them for sale branded differently, but they all appear to be exactly alike, which would imply that they all originate from the company depicted here. Probably are all cranked out off the same assembly line.
I learned (from watching YT videos) that this type of install is very common in the UK, regardless of the cost of the appliance, thus the proliferation of those sliding brackets on the UK Amazon site as well as only being able to get them from the UK via eBay. Why this is the case is beyond me, as the practice naturally begs to be common in the U.S. as well.
But if you have a small kitchen - such as I do - a totally integrated install such as this is the way to go, if you can otherwise manipulate the space. That huge blob of stainless steel doesn't shout so much tucked away to the side in a large kitchen, but it _hollers_ in a small kitchen, as if to say, "look at me - I've overtaken your space with my large, shiny presence." And covering them up prevents your having to coordinate all the finishes of your appliances.
I’ve been wracking my brain trying to calculate the offset for hinges. This puts it a slider! SMH, what a simple solution. I don’t love the gaps behind the panels, but saving about $6000 in my case I sure don’t mind that much!
This is dope. The only example I could find using regular fridge. Thank you
It is really crazy how much more expensive the refrigerators set up for panels are than regular appliances. No way is the cost justified. Nice job!
Especially if ur looking to upgrade because of bumps and bruises u can hide it perfectly
I had to pause and say this.. U are EXCELLENT with your commentary and on point with everything he was doing in the video for people like me. I loved it!!!!!!!!!!!
Great information and inspiring. I had no idea these sliders existed. Wow! High-end look for us budget-minded people. Beautiful kitchen❤ You earned another subscriber🙂
Thank you for sharing!! Y’all just saved me a fortune 😃
Yay! Love to hear that! We were hoping to help people achieve high end looks without having to spend a lot money!
This is genius and now I have so many ideas for our upcoming remodel!
This is so so so helpful, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Nicely done, designed, explained, shot, and edited. Brief and to the point!! I love how "get on with it" your process is (of course, after all the thoughtful work was done). I can stand around braining something forever, and your lean approach is inspiring, so thank you.
Fabulous example of DIY refrigerator panels! I would definitely do this for a client that did not have the budget or didn't want to invest in a high end panel ready refrigerator.
Never knew this can be done. Thanks for the vid!
Love it ! Just wondering how you get the crisper drawers out for cleaning
This is so creative and the results turned out to good! Thanks for sharing!
This is a God send! 🙌🏾 Thank you for sharing
Love love love love love this video thank you so much.
I love the new look, awesome job.
God bless🙏
Wow. This is the prettiest paneled fridge I've seen. Amazing job.
This is fantastic, been wanting to do this didn't know how, thank you.
Omg!!! I'm so in love with this!! 🥰😍💕
Fabulous concept and execution. Doable, inexpensive, and luxurious looking. thank you
Thanks for this video. We’re going to try to have our contractor do this. Well done! New subscriber here!
That was really cool!
You guys did an amazing job, thank you for the video !
thanks so much!
This video alone was worth a sub. Keep it up
Nice job!
Awesome job n explanation once I redo the kitchen following these steps wife will deftly love this
This is beautiful! You did a lovely job! It surely beat paying 10,000 for a refrigerator. Oh how I wish someone could do mine!
thank you so much!
You guys are the best from the best!!! So glad I found you!🙌😘😘
Yay! Thank you!
What a great video 👍
Beautiful job! Nicely done. I want this.👏👏👏
Thank you! 😊
Thank you for making and sharing this video, were i come from, having the appliances on display is not of our preference, so I ask my husband if we could put door panels and hide them and he was skeptical, this video and your other video for the dishwasher help me win the battle we had over this 😂 😜❤ Thanks!!
I cant say thank you enough! Best Hack EVER! Iv’e been looking for a solution with no luck and was thinking I needed to remove the door skins! Xx
Fantastic thanks!
Love this!!
Thank u so much for this video
Awesome thank you
Omg thank you so much!!!
Love it!!!
hi, i really love how you guys did this. I plan to do a panel ready for my refrigerator. I wanted to ask you if there is anything specific we need
consider for the refrigerator selection. Does it need to be counter depth or integrated etc? appreciate any feedback
Thanks so much for this video! How are the brackets and paneling holding up after two years?
Thank you for teaching me , now part 2 how to convince my partner to get panels done 😅 on our fridge
very cool
Wish i cud send u a photo of the home im in Contingency with just to ask if u thnk that kitchen set up wud work with this diy... im obsessed great job... 👍🏾
Just when I thought I was finished with my kitchen cabinets you pulled me back in lol
😂
Me too!!!
Hey, Nice Video.
One doubt though.
When you install cabinets so close on all sides of the fridge, don't there need to be some kind of passage for the hot air that comes from the back of fridge to move out?
Sorry asking, I wanted to know bcz I'm planning do just this. But am concerned.
Can you open your fridge doors beyound the 45 degree handles, so you can pull out the inside drawers?
This is so great! We are going to do this for sure. How much larger did you make the interior cabinet space than the refrigerator dimensions? Thanks!
I figured out how to search last comments and see that you made the cabinet opening 39 1/2”. I’m going to try to go with a 42” opening with the idea that if in the future I or someone wants to put a built in they would not have to change the cabinets.
wow thank you!!
Nice, thnx
Are you able to take out the fridge drawers to clean them without taking off the sliders? Seems like the door might not be able to fully open and is it somewhat restricted from fully opening with the slides.
Right. I’m thinking up alternate ways to do this so the doors can swing all the way open! But I love the simplicity and low cost of just doing this yourself!
Thanks for this! Is it safe to drill into the sides of the doors to mount the brackets? Just want to make sure that there isn't a seal that we'd be breaking in that area!
You should be able to see where the seal is on the door, so you're not drilling into that. As far as anything else inside the door, you can check to see if you can find any information on that in your manual or from the manufacturer. The majority probably don't have any lines in the door, unless they have water or ice on the door (which you probably wouldn't be doing this DIY on that kind of fridge). But double check on your specific model to be sure!
Simply Amazing ! Where and how did you get the panel ?
Glad you like it! We made our panels, you can also buy them from cabinet companies. We didn't record the process for how we made the panels, but we do have a video on how we made our cabinet doors, which is a similar process. You can find that here: ruclips.net/video/cGVEy5mUqHk/видео.html
You made it look easy lol
Compared to some of the other projects we tackled in this renovation, it felt a lot easier! Haha! 😄
It's amazing! So grateful for this! I was wondering if you could please share the size of the panels? I'm a little confused on if they should be measured to the box or if they are the same size as the doors? Thank you!
The cabinet just needs to be as wide as the fridge is with its doors 90 degrees open plus the width of the little slides.
Wow I love how this looks!!! Well done Thank you for sharing
Can you share how you made the panel?
So glad you like it! We didn't document the process for making the panels, however we do have a video for making the cabinet doors in our kitchen and it was a similar process! You can find that here: ruclips.net/video/cGVEy5mUqHk/видео.html
How does the fridge get ventilation out of this? Is it safe to do so for long run of the fridge?
@@himanirathore4572 - the fridge is ventilated at the bottom toe kick, we made a custom wood vent cover and painted it the same color as the cabinets, you can see it in some of the shots. It's also ventilated out the back. Our laundry room is behind the fridge, so we were able to push back slightly into that, and the wall built behind the fridge will have ventilation in it (the laundry room renovation is still in process, right now it's just open space behind the fridge). You definitely want to have some kind of ventilation for your refrigerator to run efficiently!
I love your vidéo! You show how to add the doors, but about the built in in which the fridge is? Is there another video explaining how you did it or did you buy it?
So glad you like it! We did build the cabinet that surrounds the fridge, however we didn't document the process, sorry!
This looks like a great idea. I'd like to know about the opening of the doors. Can you get a full opening of the doors, like to take out the shelves for cleaning, etc? It almost seems like they would just open to the straight out position and not beyond, so I'm curious. Thanks!
Yes, our doors only open to the straight out position. (If you have straight fridge doors, you would be able to open them further, ours are slightly curved). We are able to take out our long drawer with the doors open. We do have to disconnect the panels from the fridge doors if we want to take the other two drawers out. It takes about 5 minutes to do that, it's just unscrewing the screws. So annoying, but worth it to me to be able to have a pretty fridge! Haha!
@@TheMerrythought I know literally nothing about construction therefore forgive me if this is an obvious answer - is it possible to obtain door hinges for the cabinet panels that open beyond the 180 degree angle? Then would this not allow one to open the fridge doors all the way?
My husband was impressed with your solution, but he expressed the concern that screwing cabinet doors onto the refrigerator would void the manufacturer's warranty. Do you know whether your work voided the warranty on your refrigerator?
It's possible it could void the warranty. We didn't check, we just took the risk!
Thank you so much for sharing ... I have the fridigidare all fridge all freezer do ubthink it would work for this ... or the fridge doors would be too heavy ?
Hi! I have the same. Did you do it? If so how is it working for you?
Great job, if it were me, I’d skip the hinges and just let the door handles be the sole mode of attachment so I don’t have to drill into the refrigerator
Amazing work! Love it! Can you open the refrigerator beyond 90 degrees? It won't necessarily matter for my project, but I'm still curious.
Thanks! The doors only open 90 degrees. For us it didn't matter, our old fridge was next to a wall, so we've never been able to open fridge doors fully. It hasn't been an issue for us, but maybe it's just because we don't know what we're missing out on - haha!
Are you able to open or use the fridge drawer on the bottom if the doors don’t open completely? I’m sourcing a fridge now so will look for one w/out drawer in case I can’t get my doors to open. TY so much for this hack!
Thanks for sharing this, could you please provide me with a link to purchase the needed tools online ?
Nice job!! Can you please share the dimensions of the door panels and of the drawer panel you used for this project please? We have a similar refrigerator and I want to make sure we order the right dimensions. Thanks
The cabinet opening just needs to be as wide as the fridge is with its doors 90 degrees open plus the width of the little slides.
How did you come up with the rough opening measurements to accommodate for this hardware? For the fridge door and cabinet door to move smoothly without stressing the plastic glides, wouldn't the cabinet frame have to be fairly precise relative to the fridge door? Nice work by the way!
You would need to look at your fridge and look at how the doors open. Find the width of the fridge with the doors open, then give it some extra space on each side. You also need to take into consideration the thickness of the panels going on the fridge doors.
Can we drill a hole in any refrigerator door?
Wow! Thanks so much! Did you have your cabinet maker make the panels? I am going through remodel now and ordering cabinets appliances and everything. help please
My husband (a contractor/carpenter) made our cabinets and the panels. I would ask whomever you're ordering cabinets through if they make cabinet panels for appliances, a lot of them do. That way they will match your cabinets perfectly. If not, other cabinet makers do make & sell them and could probably match your cabinets.
@@TheMerrythought Thanks for answering. They look amazing. Are they holding up to kids etc?
@@Donnaconrad1 - we have three boys in the house (and lots of nieces & nephews that visit) and so far everything is holding up well to all the pulling/slamming/pushing that inevitably happens with kid use!
How did you make the panels?
Beautiful result! Would it be possible to do with concealed inset hinges?
The hidden hinges stick out further when you open the door, so you would have to make the opening wider so they wouldn't hit the fridge door. But it does seem like it would work, keeping that in mind!
@@TheMerrythoughtThank you!
Can you send me step by step directions and all material and where you bought materials. Thanks Linda
Do you have any thoughts about how to adapt this to a frig door that has the water/ice dispenser in the front of the door?? I imagine a cut out but how to make it pretty? You're so clever! 🎉
Following!
It would depend on your water dispenser, if it stuck out from the fridge or was flush with the door. If it's flush with the door, you would be able to do this with a cut out. Putting a trim molding around the cut out would help give it a prettier/more finished look. So on ours, I would have made it match the shaker style molding we have around the panel doors.
I am looking at doing this in a new build. How have the plastic brackets held up since you installed it.
They've held up great! No issues in the two years that we've had them!
i mean it looks great but refrigerators need air circulation, not sure it's a good idea to put it in a box. How is it holding up?
What if you have a water/ice dispenser in the door? Can you share how to trim out the dispenser?
I was wondering about this too…any thoughts anyone?
Going to try this! Is the link that takes you to eBay the full paxanpax kit with the sliders and the brackets to put them into? I can’t find these anywhere
The link is for a kit that has the sliders and brackets (the pieces just come attached together. they break apart). Ours didn't come with the screws though.
Just a question for someone with this setup... What if the refrigerator is broken and needs to be fixed from behind? Do you guys have to take out the entire wooden setup like unscrew and all?
If we ever needed to slide the fridge out to access the back, we would unscrew the slides and then slide the fridge door off from the panels, then the fridge could slide out. (You can see what that looks like at about 4:37 in the video). It'd take about 2 minutes to do, so not a big deal!
is it not risky to drill holes into the fridge?
Pekerjaan bagus sekali 👍.
Di manakah saya bisa membeli engsel geser yang berwarna putih itu?
rstyle.me/+OPbH3Q2_b7kac8lSzfUC9w
How much space to the sides do you have between the cabinet walls and the fridge?
There's 2-1/4 inches on each side of the refrigerator and 4-1/4 inches at the top.
How does ur fridge ventilate? I was told the back of fridge shouldnt be obstructed because it can overheat? Or is that wrong?
Correct! This install voids manufacture warranty 100%. Between drilling into the door panels - blocking air flow. There is now 0 coverage from the manufacture. I would not recommend doing this.
What about ventilation?
What was the total project cost? And time involved?
What colour are your cabinates!! Im in love !
They are Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige!
How did you know it was ok to drill into the doors? I want to do this, but am concerned I will hit lines inside the door.
You can check to see if you can find any information on that in your manual or from the manufacturer. The majority probably don't have any lines in the door, unless they have water or ice on the door (which you probably wouldn't be doing this DIY on that kind of fridge). But double check on your specific model to be sure!
Would this project still work with hidden hinges?
It seems like it should work. It would involve a little more in figuring out how the hinges opening differently would affect the doors, but should be doable!
Is there any reason you did exposed hinges instead of standard cabinet style hinges?
To use the hidden hinges, we would have had to make the opening larger to compensate for how the hinges stick out more when the door is opened. Space was a bigger want for us, so we went with these hinges, that match some cabinets on the other side of our kitchen.
Hi! How is this project holding up? I think this is genius but my contractor is weary of rust and breakage. Would love and feedback you have now a few months later. Thank you!
It's held up great! We haven't had issues with it and it's been almost a year since we did this!
I also would like to ask if you could have used hidden hinges? (European hinges?)
The hidden hinges stick out further when you open the door, so you would have to make the opening wider so they wouldn't hit the fridge door. But it does seem like it would work, keeping that in mind!
@@TheMerrythought Thank you!
Will your fridge cool properly now that you have no side and top ventilation
Our fridge has vents at the bottom and the back (we were able to do this since it backs up to our laundry room). Air circulates around the fridge since there is space around the sides and top inside the cabinet, and ventilation has been fine!
What size hinges and brackets did you all use??
these are the brackets we used: rstyle.me/+_JQ8FkT6-CQGcy37hl5KoQ and for the hinges the exact ones we bought are no longer available, we used non-mortise hinges, something like these (amzn.to/3ktJqMk) or these (amzn.to/3KDAXAU).
Is it ok not having any ventilation behind the refrigerator?
Hi! Our fridge is vented out the bottom, which you can see in the video, and it's also vented out the back. Our fridge backs into our laundry room so we were able to add a vent on the wall behind it.
Did you make the panels yourself or buy them ? What is difference between panel ready refrigerators, than ones you have to DIY, other than the price? What makes them "ready"?
We made our panels, you can see how we did that here: ruclips.net/video/vJWh4Nx2PH4/видео.html. Panel ready fridges are built ready to have your panels attached to, they don't have the "finished" door fronts. Ours had the regular, finished door front that we had to modify in order to attach the panel to.
I know it's been two years but how or who made the frig panels? Thanks!
We made our fridge panels. We shared a video on how we did that, you can see it here: ruclips.net/video/vJWh4Nx2PH4/видео.htmlsi=80ftHI2FPmrBkLOZ.
@@TheMerrythought Oh thanks bunches for the reply!
Where do you get the panels?
We made ours (we didn't record the process for how we made them, but we do have a video on how we made our cabinet doors, which is a similar process. You can find that here: ruclips.net/video/cGVEy5mUqHk/видео.html). You can also order fridge door panels from cabinet companies!
Can you share what fridge you have, how wide it is and how wide your fridge opening is? Having a hard time figuring out what fridge I can get for my 36in wide fridge opening (it’s in the wall)
Our fridge is a Whirlpool (Model:WRF535SWHZ205). It's 35-3/4" wide and our opening is 39-1/2" wide.
Can i ask the depth of fridge. Is it counter depth? We are getting refrigerator space with just 26 inch depth and we are having hard time finding one to be able to do this project.
@@pravinoct1690 - our fridge is about 35" deep. If you’re trying to get the fridge to be completely flush with the cabinets, you will either need to get a counter depth fridge or be able to make a hole in the wall to recess the fridge into (what we did, our laundry room is behind this, so we were able to push back into that). Or if your fridge sticks out further than your cabinets, you would need to build some kind of frame around the fridge that you would then attach the panel doors to. So it would look built in, but not be a flush with the cabinets.
@@TheMerrythought This is super helpful! Do you find that a 39-1/2" wide opening is sufficient to have the door open 135 degrees?
@@deetee2730 - it depends on the fridge and how curved the front is. Our doors open about 90 degrees, but our fridge front is a little bit curved. If the front of your fridge is completely flat, they will open wider (not sure how wide, since we've only done this with a slightly curved front fridge).
What kind of bracket do u use?
We used these: rstyle.me/+OPbH3Q2_b7kac8lSzfUC9w
where can i find the specs of the depth of the cabinet for the fridge?
Our fridge cabinet measures 24-3/4" deep. However, our fridge is pushed back into the room behind it. So that's how we were able to make our cabinet depth shorter than the depth of our fridge. Our fridge is 33" deep.