Pop Art Fridges

I imagine there are two main reasons pre-decorated refrigerators never caught on --

Too expensive for stores to have a large selection. They easily fill showrooms with a wide variety of makes, sizes, and options; can you imagine also having to keep on hand a playing card, a fur print, etc. etc. etc. of each one?

Refrigerators last about 15 years. Can you imagine going that long without redecorating your kitchen (well, yeah, if you're a single guy, sure, no problem, why change it? But if you're married, it's a battle to keep your better 3/4s from a major redo every year, and if you don't give in at least once every 5 years, you're treading on really thin ice)?

But the real killer of the decorated fridge idea is that sooner or later someone is going to want one with a mime, and it all goes downhill from there.

Too easily out of style, remember the cool olive green appliances from the '70's? Or that mustard yellow? Ick!

I'm thinking we had that one with the dragons.

Well, it was 1965, after all.

Brushed 'lumininium !agh! almeninium !agh! metal is more swabbv !agh! fancy.

Now you could do the same thing as a decal and only have to stock a large format printer and ink!

I want a clear glass refrigerator so the kids can see what is in there without opening the door for an eternity.

@patty...AHEM Ick? My mustard coloured refrigeratotor has worked well has since 1982. When worst comes to worst, I probalby can fix it.
My sister bought a new fridge and it died in 2 months.

Things were made better of course, but that color is still ugly honey.

We had an old green fridge that got a short to the chassis .. so when you touched it you would get a shock. I named it the "diet fridge"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJS0HdBh0RE

Kicks in after the minute mark. Was put out by Westinghouse for fridges

That's quite a find, S.Norman. Apparently, in the '60s people used their refrigerator as a sort of shrine, centering their parties around it. One of the women in the New Year's Eve party segment is wearing a dress that would match the olive green refrigerators of old.

Back in the late '60's a new family moved into the neighborhood. The mother wore bell bottoms, a poncho, and big hoop earrings -- WOW! Hippies! She was an "artist" and made a huge daisy out of Contac (sp?- that sticky backed paper) and stuck it on their refrigerator. At six or seven years of age, it seemed like a great idea. Groovy!

I could totally go for this:

http://www.foodbeast.com/2013/04/22/nerdify-your-kitchen-with-this-tardis-fridge-kit/

The front of my refrigerator is decorated with: shopping lists, notes to the missus, the kids' artwork, miscellaneous magnetic knick-knacks, coupons, a couple recipes, and the phone numbers for a poison control center (in case the leftovers resurrect themselves), the ambulance company, the insurance company, etc.
No more room for my calendar :(

Confirmed it, we did have the red fridge with gold dragons.

"Come to think of it, why can't you buy fridges nowadays with decorated fronts?"
You can, sort of. There is a company in California that will make fronts for any appliance. They have factory specs and will ship a frame to you within days. You put what you want in the frame.
They also will let you put SS/Copper/ whatever on your appliance.

We still have a built in green 1970's GE Electric Stove/Oven. The mechanical clock still keeps perfect time. We had to replace one burner years ago is all.