I've seen wallpaper covered fridges floating around for years and years, but honestly never thought I'd do such a thing. I always worried that the wallpaper would just peel off spontaneously or that I'd spill liquid on it and that would ruin it. But since there are many fridge DIYers who have come before me, I figured it must mostly work out okay.
Everything you will need for this project:
- Wallpaper
- Xacto knife or box cutter
- Smoothing tool (some wallpapers come with this already)
- Laser level or regular level (optional)
The wallpaper we chose was a little over $100 investment. In some ways it sounds silly to put $100 lipstick on a $150 pig, but to me it's really like saving money since we get to keep out fridge instead of replacing it with a more aesthetic looking one.
Make sure you are buying removable wallpaper. You do not want the kind that needs paste, you want it to already be sticky. Basically a giant sticker. Patterned wallpaper can help disguise mistakes you make when sticking it down. Our wallpaper design is patterned but pretty linear, so I realized pretty quickly that if I didn't lay it perfectly straight the lines would look wonky. With a solid color you wouldn't have to be so persnickety about the edges being straight (you can cut them off later), BUT if you need to line up the wallpaper edges on the fridge, you'd have to do that perfectly.
CLEAN FRIDGE
Before you put the wallpaper on, the fridge needs to be cleaned really well. We used a degreaser and then a regular cleaner. You could do a wipe of alcohol at the end to ensure there's so grease or cleaner or anything left on the surface. And once it's clean, let it dry completely. It won't take long to dry, but the wallpaper isn't going to stick on a wet surface.
START FROM THE TOP
For the left piece I started from the top left and for the right piece I started from the top right. This was honestly a free for all and I wish I had some really great insight on how to do this better. This is where a laser level would come in handy. The only reason I didn't bring out the level is because I know that our floor isn't completely level which means that the fridge wouldn't be perfectly level. So if I then came and put wallpaper on it that the lines where level, they may not line up with the lines of the fridge. I really wanted to the lines to be parallel to things like the handles and the space in the middle of the doors.
I guess I would say my method was to peel off only a small amount of the backing paper at a time. I pulled it away from the top part of the wallpaper and then stuck the wallpaper on the fridge in on place where I thought it needed to go. I had Casey hold the opposite side of the paper so it wouldn't stick on the fridge while I sorted out one corner. The first piece I had to completely peel off and start again. But it was okay- the wallpaper still re-stuck after being peeled off.
In the place where my wallpaper hit the edge of the fridge there were pink flowers. I tried to match up where those hit on the edge all the way down. If you look closely at the finished product, it's not perfect all the way down. It seems when I cut out the space for the ice and water dispenser that the wallpaper became askew. But more on that later...
I put the wallpaper on with a little hanging over the top because I wanted to wrap it up and stick down to the top surface. This way the imperfect edge would be hidden up there and from the front the top edge would look perfect. The same goes for the sides. Our fridge door fronts have deep sides, so that needed to be covered as well.
At some point I felt like there was no turning back and I was like oh well if it's wrong. Once It was as straight as I could get it, I used the smoother to make sure there weren't any bubbles and make sure the wallpaper was completely stuck down to the front surface.
WRAP THE EDGES
Then it was time to do the edges. This part is interesting because it seems like it should be the easiest. The only thing I noticed was that it was hard to just fold down from the top down. It all wanted to fold down together because the paper is so thick. This ended up causing large bubbles along the edges in places where it stuck down before I got the smoother to it. I would have to pull up some of the edges and replace them while I smoothed over the edge. Not a huge deal, but still something to pay attention to.
