in our mud room area is (was) a refrigerator-freezer pair. we used the fridge for drinks, the freezer for meat, and life was good. our kitchen has another fridge/freeze for day to day stuff.

until one day the fridge stopped working. we paid someone to fix it, who broke it more, then ghosted us. the same model fridge is no longer manufactured so we couldn't replace it either.

that's when we bought this clunker. it's "nice" but looks quite bad. cost: $898.

as you can see, it also created a nasty gap above each appliance, as we had to move the previously natively "grill" from the bottom and top to make both appliances fit.

so we bought some stain, appliance risers, brushes, and got to work.

first we raised the white fridge a couple inches.

this allowed us to re-install the chrome grill on the top and bottom.

next we taped the appliances and did a bit of sanding.

finally we painted the fridges black with a multi-material

this didn't come out great on the first try. turns out an even coat on metal is not so easy.

with additional sanding and touchups we achieved acceptable status. oh well.

if a replacement was possible it would cost $3k, so this wasn't the worst outcome. but in the future if our freezer breakers, we'll probably get rid of this new fridge and revert to a done-for-you pair.