how to hide a fridge in a living room

Despite the kitchen being a traditional place for a fridge, there are many reasons why you may look into how to hide a fridge in a living room.

If you have a very small kitchen, perhaps a galley kitchen, there may not be room for you to easily install and access the fridge. You may also have a large family, which means you need more than one fridge to have the capacity for the food you need. Or perhaps you can only fit a small integrated fridge in your kitchen and again need additional capacity.

Or, maybe you love entertaining and would really like to have a wine fridge or mini-fridge in your living area for easy access to drinks or snacks! Whatever your reason is for needing to house a refrigerator in your lounge, you need to apply some interior design to the problem so that it is not there in plain sight for all to see!

Read on for some smart ideas on how to disguise a fridge in your living room!

Practicalities

The first thing you need to do before settling on a location for a fridge is to ensure that you have all of the practicalities covered. This includes ensuring that you have access to power and adequate ventilation for the fridge. The fridge must also not be in direct sunlight or near a heat source.

The next thing to consider is if the refrigerator’s location may disturb you while in the lounge. It can be noisy, and you will need access to it, so it doesn’t want to be where people will be crossing each other’s view of the tv, for instance.

Size is the final thing to consider before deciding where your refrigerator will go. If you are a single household or don’t do much cooking, then maybe you don’t need a large fridge, in which case a mini-fridge will have enough room and will save space.

Location Options

There are some different location options that you can consider based on the layout of your house.

Underneath a Room Divider

Fridge in the living room

If you have an open plan kitchen lounge area, you could use a breakfast bar as a divider between the two rooms and insert your appliance underneath the worktop overhang. A bar stool can work to disguise the view of a refrigerator from the lounge, but you can still get easy entry to the door.

Under the Stairs

If you have a staircase coming down into your living room, this could be the perfect place to install a fridge because of its height.

The fridge could be free-standing, or you could fit a series of cabinet doors over the front of the fridge and the rest of the recess, providing additional storage space. This provides a uniform look to the space and hides the refrigerator from view.

Before having any cabinetry work carried out, one thing to note is that there is sufficient ventilation, or you could insert a heat sink to prevent any overheating.

Alcoves

Alcoves lend themselves as a place to hide a fridge as they have the space you need, and the walls are already recessed so that the full depth of the appliance doesn’t need to protrude into the room.

Other options

There are other options that perhaps would work equally well as a lounge that are worth considering, such as in an office or in a hallway. Using underneath staircases gives you the ceiling height you need without using up space that you would otherwise use for something else.

At the Side of a Sofa

If you have a small fridge to hide in your living room, then an option is to place it at the side of a sofa, putting a piece of plywood or something over the top of it so that it can be used as a side table or worktop for drinks and magazines, but still be accessible.

Camouflage Options

Once you have decided upon a great location option for your refrigerator, freeing up space in your kitchen, you are also ready to look at other options to camouflage or integrate into the room.

There are many options for making your fridge less conspicuous than what it is in your room, and we have set out a few of these:

Cabinets

Just as you can in a kitchen, you can cover and disguise a refrigerator in a lounge by building cabinetry around it and having a door in line with the fridge door, making sure that it opens in the right direction! This option provides you with additional cabinet space if required and can link the style with the rest of your room furniture or style without any jarring contrasts.

Fridge Door Coverings

A red refrigerator and red sofa

Rather than trying to disguise your fridge behind a cabinet, you can take the perhaps bolder approach of hiding it in plain sight by transforming it into a feature in the room by using adhesive stickers.

There are many ideas online that you can use for inspiration, with people covering their refrigerators with colours and stripes and even creating art displays.

As an alternative to adhesive strips, it is also possible to purchase panels that are magnetic and cover the whole of your appliance. These can also give your fridge door an incredible pop of colour and make it a feature rather than you feeling like you need to hide it away.

Picture or Photo Display

Another example of great way to integrate a refrigerator into your room is to make it a great place to display a photo or artwork. You can display one or many pictures using magnetic frames, hiding the refrigerator out of sight behind them.

Storing a Fridge Outside a Kitchen

Not everyone has available space in their kitchen to house all of their appliances, and this can leave you with the worry of how to hide a fridge in a living room. Integrated appliances are simple as they are away behind kitchen cabinets, but it is time to get creative if you do not have the capacity.

You can take the option of hiding your fridge freezer behind cupboards or cabinetry outside of your kitchen or go in the opposite direction to hide it and instead make a feature of it. There are many funky designs for refrigerators, bringing their doors to life with colour or pattern!

So don’t feel like the only possible solution is to have your appliances in your kitchen, there are other options, and it is up to you whether you choose to keep them hidden or make a statement of their presence!

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