Demo it and take it out in pieces.

Decoupage the whole thing with pictures of 1950s americana and then use it for storage of out of season clothes.
Be sure to remove the dead body before you put your sweaters in. :-D

Hire someone to recover the freon coolant and then either cut it up into smaller peices yourself or hire someone to do the same. Then haul it off

The question is how to repurpose and I heartily agree! What a great piece of americana. I would clean it up, perhaps repaint it? Depending on your colors in the new space, you could go for something funky like an awesome 50s turquoise or you could simply repaint white. Off season clothing is a great idea for storage use. You could also look into using it as a television or media storage. Have a wooden inset built that has shelves and you can utilize hardware that allows for the insert to be pulled up and locked. Think about it like one of those cool cabinets at the end of a bed where the television rises up out of the top. It could be a great way to store bookshelves as well or simply pull up a cabinet from withing to utilize it as a serving space for parties? The possibilities really are endless. You could even paint with a cool graphic stencil in black on white....I could go on and on.....

Would make an awesome space-age hope chest for storage...or a 'safe' for photos and other delicate papers. I have had a lot of luck with the Rustoleum enamel (brush on) paints on metal cabinets and small appliances...could be made-over into a fun color.

Sometimes, trash is really that...... trash.

Step 1: Unplug that energy hog

Step 2: Dry it out and clean it up

Step 3: Paint it to suit your decor

Step 4: Use it as an awesome hope chest and console table

If it's next to your laundry room it might make a great surface for folding clothes.

I had a friend with an old 1950's fridge that he used as a wardrobe. You might be able to tip this sucker on its side and do something similar.

this is pretty easy, either turn it into a hot tub or keep using it for dead bodies.

Get it out & call a recognized freon recycler/disposer, then give it to a metal recycler, they love that chunk of metal

Make it into a planter after you gut it and paint it. Obviously use plants that like low light.

Someone once told me these things are basically fireproof(My mum keeps all her important documents in her deep freeze) but I don't know if it has to be on for that to work. I'm sure google could find out for you.

If you find out that it is, it would be a great place to keep anything precious to you.

Take off the door and put it on its side. Give a kid/kids a pile of old sheets and step back to marvel at the awesome fort they will no doubt create.

I like the fireproof idea- do you know how expensive firesafes are? Use it to store valuables, important documents and backups of your family photos.

Or food (not necessarily frozen food if you don't want to pay for electricity to run it) but food stores for emergencies like earthquakes or blizzards.

Or if you want to use it as decor, I second the idea of using it as a bookcase/display. Painted inside and out with awesome colors (turquoise/lime? lilac/yellow?) with the door propped open. Like they use armoires with the doors open for display.

Bomb shelter.

If you can get it out of your basement after remodeling, many community colleges have HVAC and refrigeration classes that would probably refurbish it for a nominal cost, paint and cooling system. If they can renew the cooling system, you may get a more energy efficient freezer. If not, then go with the decoupage!

Refinish it to your liking. Turn it upside down, add some massive legs to support it near the ceiling then add some indirect lighting or opaque cover to diffuse lighting or... sunlamps if you like melanomas.
Have a custom designed leather love seat made with Frididaire embossed in the back and scootch it underneath the lighting.

Or -- make the freezer the entry to the room. Stand it on end, cut out the back and have a double door entry.

I instantly thought of it as a safe as well. Those things are horribly expensive.
But you could as well take off the top (or build a cap to go over the top) and make a huge table out of it (have top hang over all 4 sides so you can get chairs around it. In the end will depend on what you intend to use the basement room for.

Coffin :)

make a padded fabric cover for the lid and repaint the body to make a bench! If the inside is dirty, have a handy person construct a thin wooden box that will slip inside and seal the wood, or cover it with fabric as well to have a cute space to store throws or out of season clothes?

Other than the obvious--a repository for dead bodies--I really don't see why repurposing this behemoth is a good idea. It's junk, and junk that's taking up a lot of space. Accept that and put your energy into something you'll get some benefit from. Rent a reciprocating saw (aka, Sawzall), cut it up and remove it. Recycle the steel if you want to flex your eco muscle.

Extra beer storage.

It's really time to recycle this thing, not reuse it.

Boat Anchor.

Seriously - All you need to do is remove a door and possibly the casing and a portion of the surrounding wall to get that thing out of there in one piece - otherwise, chop it into bits.

My boyfriend recently took up beer brewing as a hobby. It is actually very cool (and not hillbilly as I imagined) Many people take old freezers and turn them into kegerators for their beer brewing adventures.

I would strongly urge you to take up drinking. Lots of it. no, srsly, there has to be a way to get it out of there. Have a few drinks then make a plan.

Thank god there are SOME creative people on AT! To the rest of you- she asked how to repurpose it. If you don't have an answer to her question, don't bother with your negative, useless commentary.

The firesafe idea is GREAT.. I also like TamDiego's idea of a bench. Please let us know what you end up doing!

http://www.instructables.com/id/Chest-Freezer-Kegerator-1/

Some things are just not worth repurposing. Have freon removed and get rid of it.

Bar base.

be careful if you have kids around. arent there always warnings about taking the lids off so kids dont play in old refrigerators and get trapped accidentally?

Just a note to the people who say they keep their important documents in the freezer in case of fire:

When my house had a major fire we aren't allowed back in the structure for 24 hours (apparently there is a serious danger of the fire re-ignighting if disturbed in that time) and between the heat of the fire and the time without power we were advised to not even touch our fridge and freezer. We offered to clean them out ourselves so we could save our expensive cookware that was storing leftovers but our restoration experts told us that we risked biohazards as well as freon exposure and it would be very dangerous. Invest in a real fire safe for important documents and don't risk irreplaceable things in with your food.

Regarding its use as a fire safe / gun safe: The insulation used in most freezers, old or new, is not fire resistant. Usually, it's polyurethane or polystyrene. The only exception is a *very* old freezer that would have used fiberglass but even then that can't be guaranteed. If you have valuables like guns / papers / jewelry that are worth preserving in a fire, then get a real fire resistant safe.

It's likely that because the freon is valuable, a freon removal service will get rid of it for free.

Turn it on it's end and add shelving inside...
Use it as a bookshelf/cabinet with a door.
Paint it a bright glossy color maybe, or seal it with it's interesting finish. You could even add a mirror to the outside of the door with a little bit of trim. Or if you can get the door off, turn it on it's side and use it as an entertainment center.
http://www.eco-proper.com

If you want a shelving unit or display case refurb/paint it and if it's sturdy enough, plop it on it's side, vertically or lengthwise. Vertically you can use it with the lid like a door or not. Just be sure if you are making shelving you use stick on items not drilling...don't really want that freon laying around.

Oooh, I would totally repurpose it into a giant fishpond in the basement. Maybe goldfish with waterlilies and cattails. Or a tropical tank with hundreds of brilliantly colored fish schooling and skimming below the surface. Heck, I would even try raising my own tilapia to increase my locavore points. But I am most likely the only person to do something insane like that.

"The firesafe idea is GREAT"

Not really.

Have you ever seen the remains of a house after it's burnt down?
Refrigerator/freezers aren't fire-safe and their contents dont' stand a chance.

This is probably not helpful, but I would totally put fake dead bodies in there to show people when they come over.

We had an old freezer in my Grandparent’s farm house basement. My Grandfather put the freezer in and then built an addition over the only exist. Fast forward 4 decades and my husband and I had the task of removing it as we renovated the house. If you chose to do this here are a few tips…
1. Wear protective covering over your whole body, especially your eyes and mouth. Most likely the freezer has fiber glass insulation which has small particles, not good to breath in.
2. Take off the lid, remove the deck and plastic lining and use a sawzall to cut it up in small pieces. You can talk to someone if there is still Freon in the cooler (You may need to assess that.)
3. After this is done the freezer is fairly light to move. You can also scrap the metal and make a little cash to take yourselves out to dinner after all your hard work! Over all the process is fairly easy, just a little bit of labor.

I'm glad I'm not the only one whose first thought was "a place to store all those bodies"...

But still not sure that's completely helpful.

Is it really that much of an energy sucker? If not, I'd keep it. My grandparents had one and used it constantly to store extra produce. Granted, they lived on a farm and had more vegetables than they knew what to do with, so being able to freeze the extras was more than valuable....But for a more urban environment, I would still think if you bought in bulk from Sam's or Costco to save money that it would be handy. Just a thought...

I like the idea of storing off season clothing. If it was in the laundry room and I couldn't get it out I would paint it, prop open the top with some fancy wood or metal hardware (the durble heavy duty kind that hold up large bookshelves), and somehow drill some "floating shelves" on the inside of the cover. In the inside make three separate wooden or wicker laundry baskets with removable cloth bags inside for easy transport.

Or I like the idea of a bar as well. Who knows.. Good luck. Let us know what you decide to do!

What about using it at as a bar? Assuming you are able to paint it, I think it would be great as a bar / buffet for parties. If its painted, you can throw a tablecloth and/or runner over top. Plus - you'd store all your party gear inside.

I love the idea of using it as a tilapia fish tank for aquaponics. It's a pretty involved process and may not be for everyone but this article is a decent reference.
http://www.squidoo.com/aquaponics

We also have one of these monstrosities in our basement. The old owners did the same thing- walled up the basement in such a way that it's impossible to get out. The freezer has a huge capacity (7ft long and almost 4ft tall) and is a total energy hog unless you keep it full of food. Since these coolers are so tall it'd never work as a bench like some have suggested. Extra storage may be a good option although the closed up cooler might make the stuff in it smell. We considered the kegerator option too since my husband homebrews, but it's just so big we thought it would still waste a bunch of energy. I think we're going to end up removing it in pieces eventually.

This is a bit weird but my dad put water in his old (unplugged) freezer and used it as a rehab pool for a leg injury. It worked really well.
Barring that, leave it plugged in and use it to store large stashes of wool (keeps the moths away).