Building a fridge enclosure

How to create a built in cabinet for a fridge for $30

 Here was one of the many area in the house while planning that I thought we could save money. Not upgrading to a fridge enclose or a deep cabinet over the fridge with a gable surely would save us some upgrade dollars. Standard cabinet depth is 12" and that is what we have here. 24" tall 36" wide and 12" deep. I was wanting the look of a built in fridge. I forget the exact upgrade cost but I believe it is around $500.
We spent $48.00 so I think that was a very successful decision I made way back when.
Here is how we did it.
We needed to move our upper cabinets over by 3/4" to accomodate for the thickness of the plywood gable we were going to be adding. So we started by moving over the base just a little and then moving over the uppers over to be be again centered over the bases. We attached a ledger board to the wall , unscrewed the cabinets and carefully moved them over and reattached them to the studs. Pretty easy enough and $0.
Here is something I learned , the uppers are 3" wider than the bases in this area because of the enormous laminate counter overhang, so we had a gap to deal with. Oh I recently got a table saw so it was simple enough for us to make a filler strip to fill in this gap, its so nice to have all the tools you need for a job.

 I added spacers to the side of the cabinet to attach the filler strip, then I had full support for my gable piece.
I used particle board screws. I used a sheet of paint grade plywood , ripped down to 28" by the Home depot experts , I can not rip down a big sheet of plywood , nor do I have room to transport a full sheet home..

 So now I have the gable , everything is perfectly lined up . We certainly could  have ordered a deeper cabinet which would be 24" deep but our fridge is quite deep and it would have left us with a space at the front , no no , or we could bring the cabinet forward and have a hidden space behind, yes, yes. So that is what we did but we just used the standard cabinet we had , no one will ever know. Its really a bonus cabinet. Going with what we have also saved us a trip to Ikea . They have a cabinet that is 24" deep by the dimension we need and is only $34, that's amazing, but I'm glad we didn't have to go there on a Saturday.

 You can see how it sits forward leaving about 15" of space to the wall. Good air circulation for the fridge.

 There you have it , its like nothing ever happened. Just need to paint , add a piece to the top to extend the cabinet to the ceiling height and we will all be done . Oh wait there are also the brackets and bead board to be added to the open shelves there and backsplash and new counters to come....oh still lots of work to do but things are moving forward.

 I still need to iron on the edging to conceal the rough edge of the plywood.

 Terrible lighting I know , but here is the cabinet colour , finally two doors for the laundry room have been painted. I love Martha Stewart paints, why are they getting rid of it here??? Bedford grey.

 So what do you think ? was it a good move ? It would be nice to have the fridge in there to show you but it sits in the family room until the floors are done , you don't want to ruin soft pine floors with a fridge 4 wheeling around.

And onto a second little area addressed yesterday , I installed this little cabinet into the void in the corner , there was supposed to be a wrap around series of uppers here but I did not want cabinets crowding up my beautiful window wall , I wanted open and airy. I thought we were going to put shelves up here next to the window but I decided this was a better decision. I was a tight squeeze , its NEVER coming out ...

I think we can call that two steps forward for the kitchen. I think I may even start painting this week.