The Most Maximalist, Colorful Place in My Apartment Is the Front of My Fridge
My aesthetic is organized chaos. I somehow have close to 50 cookbooks, nine different types of spatulas, and an alarming amount of very specific appliances—and that’s just in the kitchen of my little New York City studio apartment. I know where every single tool, condiment, and style of rice is tucked into the cupboards and pantry though. The same goes for the rest of my home, which has 12 eyeshadow palettes organized by color in a rolling cart, shoes stacked by type in two different cube and shelving units, and linens rolled up into a hanging sweater holder in my closet. There’s a lot going on, but everything has its place.
The spot where I let my true colors shine though is on the front of my fridge. It is almost completely covered with a collage of photos with friends; magnets from different destinations I’ve traveled; random stickers I thought were entertaining (like Gudetama the lazy egg, a pint of Talenti ice cream, even though I’m a little lactose intolerant); jokey TV show magnets (the cast of Riverdale is like family, okay?); and a random collection of ridiculous food pun magnets (“You ‘Gouda’ be kidding me,” etc.). I treat it like a puzzle when I want to add something new, which is more difficult when it’s, say, a giant Mickey Mouse 3D waffle magnet versus a photobooth strip.
Turns out decorating the front of your fridge is kind of polarizing. Recently, I conducted a very unscientific Instagram poll to see how many people cover their entire fridges with memories and how many prefer that blank but sleek fridge front. The results were split almost exactly down the middle, with 52 percent for blank and 48 percent voting for, for lack of a better word, cluttered. If you’re in the latter camp, then I recommend buying these cheap magnetic holders for instant camera photos on Amazon. You can also find fun patterned ones and different shapes and sizes for other types of camera prints as well. I paired mine with these satirical fortune cookie magnets that I found in a gift shop on vacation once, and they never fail to make me laugh.
Even though the inside of my fridge is the stuff of organizational porn—plastic bins corralling condiments and cheeses, mixers, and meal-prepped produce slotted into perfectly organized sections, I like the outside of my fridge to be colorful, personal, and punny. If having a fridge with a fun front is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. Sometimes you just need to lean into the chaos.