Refrigerator - Part 1 (Spray Paint)

I want black appliances in my kitchen! I could give you three or four of my Daddy's little sayings for when we said we wanted something here, but I'm sure your parents have their own...insert one after that last statement.

Seriously, though, the plan for my kitchen is black appliances, but our fridge was that gorgeous almond color that some people adore. Not me. I want black. So I searched the internet and got several articles on how to, but no pictures so you don't know how the project actually turned out and I don't want the thing to actually look spray painted.

Disclaimer: If you have never spray painted a dang thing in your life, please learn and perfect the skill before you try to paint a huge piece of your kitchen! Learn from me, you'll be glad you did. (You'll see why in a minute.)

Here is a picture of the fridge when I started. Isn't she a beaut? Ugh!

First thing you're going to want to do is get it good and clean. Start with whatever degreaser you use in your kitchen. I use Mox by Conklin, it cleans anything, I mean ANYTHING and is less than half the price of 409 or whatever and is safe around kids and pets. Then, (some websites say to sand and some do not, the paint can says to sand, so I did) sand the entire surface with a very fine sanding sponge.

Then you will want to tape and/or plastic off anything that you don't want to paint.

You will also want to cover or remove the door handles. Aluminum foil works great for this, since it is easy to manipulate to strange shapes. I was planning to take off these ugly handles and not put them back on, but the screws are inside the door so it would be a major undertaking to get it all back together and I'm not confident enough to do that.

After covering everything up, you will want to wipe the fridge down with mineral spirits or denatured alcohol to remove any traces of oil left by your hands. Then you can paint with appliance paint from your local hardware store. If you have never painted before, Valspar has some great video tutorials on their website.

In this picture, you can see the blotches from me not knowing what I was doing. I really thought I did...but I didn't.

Here we go, I learned how to spray paint and redid it. Much better!

Now then, the painting is done and the fridge will be moved into my house tonight!! YAY! It's not finished though, I still have a few things to do and will post the pics when I'm done...here's a hint, though, to tide you over

I have an idea on what to do with the door handles, but welcome your suggestions. Just one thing...they can't be painted. Even with plastic paint, due to the excessive use, any paint will come off and look bad in a short time.