How to turn an ugly freezer into a pretty spot to fold the laundry.
One of the first projects we completed in our basement remodel was the utility room. Completed may be an overstatement as we’re still working on the finishing touches, but it is the only area that’s close to done. My utility room includes my laundry, furnace, water heater and softener, some storage AND our chest freezer. As you can tell, our freezer had seen better days. It still works like a champ though, and I’m not one to fork over hundreds of dollars on something that doesn’t NEED replacing.
I really want our new utility room to be clean and as pretty as possible because that’s where I spend a fair amount of time doing laundry. Plus, who doesn’t envy those Pinterest worthy laundry rooms with their farmhouse decor? Mine isn’t going to be that fancy, but it will be a far cry from what it used to be. Anyway, that is what inspired me to figure out a way to turn my eyesore of a freezer into something that added to the “pretty.”
The pictures really don’t do this sucker justice. I scrubbed for what seemed like forever and it didn’t make much of a difference. So I got to thinking, how can I spruce this up? My first thought was paint, but I was afraid that it would scrape off too easily and that could end up making it look worse. Then I thought about a custom vinyl wrap, like we used to put on our trailer to add the DS Powersports logo. I was reminded of the cost of that, and decided that wouldn’t be a good idea either. Sticking with the theme of a wrap, I decided to try Con-Tact paper. I Googled it but didn’t find anybody who had done it before, so thought I’d give it a shot.
I found the Con-Tact paper on Amazon for about $35.00. There were a bunch of different designs available, and different size rolls of it too. I bought a roll that was 18″ x 60′, which was WAY more than enough. I wanted plenty in case I screwed it up a few times and needed to start over. Plus I figure I can always find a use for the extra down the road.
I started by measuring out what I would need to wrap from one wall-touching corner to another, and cut a piece of the Con-Tact paper to length with a few extra inches to tuck around the back. (I didn’t wrap around the back.) It was a really big piece and not super easy to work with, but by only peeling off the back layer a little bit at a time, I was able to work my way around the freezer. I started with the top half of the freezer, started at one end and slowly worked my way around to the other side. The only other tool I used was a plastic scraper to help me work out the bubbles. You could use a debit card or something similar to do the trick too. I did the same for the bottom half of the freezer, and instead of cutting down the width, I overlapped the two pieces. My pattern was busy enough that I didn’t worry about matching it up too closely either.
The top of the freezer was much easier to do as the pieces of Con-Tact paper were smaller, and it was a horizontal surface. I made sure to leave enough of the paper hanging over the sides so that I could wrap those too. On the corners, I cut a slit and wrapped them, just like you’d do with a gift box. Finally, I used a box cutter to trim around the handle of the freezer.
Now I have a pretty freezer that doubles as a place to fold laundry and is still easy to keep clean. The Con-Tact paper has held up really well so far, no peeling or rips anywhere. My husband thought this was completely unnecessary, but when it was all done even he admitted that it looked good!
Have you tried something similar? Post in the comments below about what it was and how it went!