My son was doodling and presented me with a small scrap of paper with a charming little fish drawn on it. I admired it for a while and contemplated using it as a bookmark, but instead walked to the fridge and popped it on the fridge with a small cat magnet. As I walked away I thought about a stunning home I had seen on yesterday's episode of World's Greenest Homes . It had a magnificent kitchen - all clad in solid timber. Many of the homes I have seen on the various TV shows I enjoy, like Grand Designs, seem to be featuring this trend of hiding everything away behind panelling and cupboard doors. Yes it's all very slick and while I'd love an appliance cupboard to tuck away my toaster, kettle and the like, and possibly think that a disguised dishwasher may not be a bad idea - but hiding your fridge? Honestly - it's a kitchen - a place of food preparation - why be coy about the fact that you have a fridge? Ironically many of those kitchens feature massive, obvious ovens, and yes, it was ovens, plural, in one notable home - to balance the room's aesthetics! But oh dear me, let's not have anything as vulgar as a fridge on display.
With your fridge so cleverly disguised, obviously these homes would never have that relaxed attitude found in so many Australian homes of encouraging guests to help themselves - "Want another beer?" "Sure, grab one from the fridge?" "Want a drink of cold water?" "You know where the fridge is!"
I guess all this fridge hiding maybe a backlash against people like me who have their lives on display on the fridge, school notes, dockets, photos, memorabilia, kid art works...it looks messy, but it's the sort of mess that takes a house from being a showpiece to a home that is actually lived in by real people. The added bonus is that many of those magnets holding that paraphernalia in place, were given to me by friends and family. They are the ideal little token, perfect for a child to buy with limited pocket money, little bits of whimsy, corny sayings, little visual jokes. I love them. So I wonder what do those people do with their fridge magnets?
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