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| The plan |
Our fridge was bought second hand, and had originally been positioned above a wheel arch in its original caravan. The decorative covering on the front of the door extended below the bottom of the fridge to cover the wheel arch as well, and was consequently too long for our purposes. It was also made from fablon covered MDF that didn't match the oak in our Viking. Having removed this cover, we were left with foil insulation visible, so a new cover needed to be made. In line with the art deco theme of our interior, we obtained a stylised graphic of sun rays emerging from behind skyscrapers. This was enlarged on a photocopier and cut to make a template to transfer the image onto oak faced ply from our spare doors.
The pattern was drawn through the template onto ply, and then cut out with a router. Again, I used aluminium angle to guide the straight cuts, and did the curves freehand.
Unfortunately, the ply was not quite as wide as the fridge door, so some foil could still be seen. This issue was solved with an oak picture frame to cover the gap. I dismantled the frame and cut it to size so it fitted the door. It was then sanded to remove old varnish.
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| Showing material removed to obtain correct size |
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| Half sanded |
The oak frame was too thick and projected forwards too far from the fridge door. I converted my router into a milling machine by constructing tracks from the former aluminium ladder, and milled the frame to a better thickness. Lou then varnished the frame and sun ray ply.
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| Varnishing |
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| Home made milling machine |
At the planning stage, Lou wanted the background behind the ply to match the kitchen worktop, but the worktop was far too thick to use. We tried to find a gloss mint Formica type laminate, but for some reason it is only available to buy in matt. It is also only available in huge sheets, so we had to buy three metres of it. For once, at least it was available in this country. I had several sheets of perspex left over from when I tried to make the corner windows, and one of these was cut to size to place over the Formica on the fridge door, thus giving it a glossy appearance.
We used construction adhesive to glue the Formica to the fridge door, followed by the perspex and then the plywood pattern. Lastly, the oak frame was glued on, and the fridge door was ready to be re-hung.
Meanwhile, other parts of the original kitchen were being recycled. There had been a cupboard and a drawer where the oven now sits. The door and drawer front from these were combined to create a door for the oven compartment. The drawer base was used to fix them together, and the obligatory two coats of varnish applied. Lou polished the original hinges to be used to fit the new door.
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| Hinge polishing |
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| Parts to make door in front of oven |
There was a further cupboard beside the original fridge, but as the replacement fridge is wider, the cupboard space has gone. I cut its door, and used part of it to make a door for the storage 'slot' below the oven. More of Lou's polished hinges were employed to fit this.
Above the fridge was an opening with three horizontal wooden dowels which revealed the sink bowl behind. This was an original feature that Lou wanted to keep so mint Formica and perspex were also fitted here to make this area look less unsightly.
There is a narrow gap of just over an inch beside our newly fitted, wider fridge. Our caravan is very small and space is at a premium. I did not want to waste this space so I designed a vertical utensil drawer to go in there. I built a frame from wood, and used more mint Formica as a back for it. A drawer runner was fitted to the bottom of the frame. I would have used the other runner at the top but there was not enough room for it, so I found some plastic channel in the shed and installed it with a screw head running through it as a guide. I screwed the last offcut of the redundant cupboard door to the front, and fixed a few strips of wood inside, one of which had slots cut out to fit the utensils. Finally, brass dresser hooks were screwed in from which to hang the contents. The drawer holds all the large cooking utensils that will not fit in the cutlery drawer, and would otherwise take up space in a cupboard.
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| The finished kitchen |
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