Give your old refrigerator a face lift. All you need is a little appliance spray paint…and some patience.

Transforming the basement into Justin’s man cave, we knew we would need a fridge for the kitchen area. We had an older white one that we kept in the garage for drinks - mainly beer and La Croix…the drink fridge. Because we are were on a budget, and no one reeeaaaally needs three refrigerators we planned on using that one. I remembered seeing a HGTV makeover once where they had painted the fridge so I knew it would work (I also remembered it looking pretty simple and easy, which of course wasn’t exactly the case). Humidity is not your friend on this project. A nice fall day would have been a bit better, but I wasn’t willing to go months with a white fridge in the basement while we waited on the perfect day for spray painting. Check out the materials, step by steps, and tips I learned along the way.

Items Needed

Painters plastic sheeting
Frog Tape or any painters tape
cleaner (I used 409 and SOS pads)
appliance spray paint (I used 6 cans)
Good ventilation/paint booth or ability to spray fridge outside.

Prepwork really makes a difference on this project.

Prep Steps

Unplug and clean out the refrigerator and freezer - great opportunity to get rid of all those frozen items you forgot about and will never eat.
Clean the inside and outside of the refrigerator - ours was so dingy from being in our garage. Not only was it nasty on the outside, but the inside looked rough too. After the refrigerator had been unplugged for an afternoon we moved it out into the drive way and gave it a good scrub down with soap and water and then went back with 409 to really get all of the extra dirty areas. I should probably be embarrassed at how good it looked after it was clean. Conveniently I don’t have that before pic. Ha!
Take the plastic and cut areas for the inside of the doors and interior of the refrigerator. Use your painters tape to cover the inside. I put the tape on first, pressing down only on the edges of the rubber stripping of the door - then added the plastic by gently attaching it to the remaining edge of the tape. This way you can easily spray paint the interior edges of the refrigerator without getting paint on the weather/rubber stripping on the door plus the door itself.

Oh how clever I thought I was. I thought it would be perfectly fine to put up plastic and drop cloths to spray paint inside to avoid the humidity….

Ready, set, paint!

Now we’re ready to get painting! As you can see - we had to move the project outdoors.

What I Learned

Appliance spray paint is sticky and gets all over everything.

I started spray painting inside to beat the heat and humidity. I did this over Memorial Day weekend in NC and it was quite hot and humid. Because this was my first time using appliance spray paint I wanted to have a nice and controlled environment. Welp, that went out the window after I went through my first can of paint. I had majority of the space prepped covered in plastic and spray paint - think makeshift spray booth. Yet the overspray made it in to the small slivers that weren’t covered, not to mention all over me. I freaked out, because you could clearly see where overspray had colored the floor in a fine black mist. Outside we went.

Appliance spray paint must be sprayed continuously. Don’t be tempted to let up on the cap.

Unlike normal spray paint, appliance spray paint needs to be continuously sprayed. For regular spray paint I prefer to spray in smooth sweeping motions, spraying several light layers to avoid dripping or pooling of the paint. Appliance paint must be sprayed continuously and to fully cover the appliance in one continuous stream. When you lightly sprayed a space or tried to touch up spots it would change the finish of the paint. The paint is meant to be glossy, but if you sprayed just one spot or didn’t cover the area entirely it would turn matte and it gave it a splotchy look. The only way to achieve a nice glossy finish was to keep spraying for full coverage - no light layers. I started by spraying the bottom and inside edges of the refrigerator. For the sides I would start at the top and work my way down spraying the full width, 12 inches down at a time, looking over the surface to be sure no white was showing through and then continuing working down each side. There were several times I would go back and find a few spots where white was peeping through - I would have to go over the entire side again to make sure the finish stayed consistent - hence the 6 cans.

Mineral Spirits worked great for clean-up.

When the spray paint got all over the floor I panicked, grabbed mineral sprirts and started cleaning. It cleaned up quickly off the concrete and easily took the overspray off my arms and legs. There were also a few areas on the inside of the refrigerator where I didn’t have the tape pressed down all the way. Mineral spirits and a Q tip cleaned it right up.

After some trial and error I can say the final product turned out great. I would allow 24 hours between sections and it seemed to work well. After the paint would dry somewhat I would bring the refrigerator inside to finish drying. It was pretty humid so I felt like I needed to really give it some time to dry in a climate controlled area. And really the refidgerator could have been painted in one day, but I kept running out of spray paint!! So I would wait a day in between trips to the store for drying time - I didn't want there to be any issues with the finish.

You would never know the fridge was white to begin with. Its been a few months since the project was complete and the paint is holding up well!