Not even the inside of your fridge is safe from decorating

INTERIOR DESIGN

It took Lynzi Judish, a lifestyle blogger in New York, three hours to create her enchanted forest-themed fridge. LYNZI JUDISH, VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES

Julianne Brown, an artist in West Palm Beach, Fla., said her fridgescaping had made the fridge — and the produce within it — more accessible to her three young children. “We eat first with our eyes,” she said. JULIANNE BROWN VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES

Image

By Lia Picard

The New York Times

There’s organizing a fridge, and then there’s fridgescaping: the art of decorating a fridge’s interior.

When Lynzi Judish restocks her refrigerator, for example, she doesn’t just fill it with color-coded glass containers. Instead, Judish, a 37-year-old lifestyle blogger in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., creates a little world within the 37-degree space. Milk is poured into a pink paisley-printed acrylic pitcher; butter is placed in a quaint hedgehog dish; zucchini and carrots are neatly arranged in a rattan basket; and red cherries overflow in a white ceramic pedestal bowl.

Throughout, herbs and flowers like echinacea sprout up in vases alongside fairy figurines lit up by floral twinkle lights. It’s Judish’s enchanted forest-themed fridge, and it took her about three hours to assemble it. “There’s just a lot of little details in that one,” she said.

Judish first gave fridgescaping a try about three months ago after long admiring other fridges she’d seen on TikTok. Now it’s a hobby that she takes pleasure in. “I love looking at the work that I’ve done,” she said. “I feel a lot of pride in it.”

Fridgescaping sits at the intersection of home organization and interior design. Fruit and vegetables are displayed prominently in decorative bowls, rather than in Tupperware; drinks become part of the décor; and leftovers and practical items like condiments are tucked in the back. Videos of these curated interiors have a niche audience on TikTok where they garner thousands, if not millions, of views.

Fridgescaping may seem novel, but the word first appeared in a 2011 blog post — though the original blogger’s fridge was more subdued than the ones on TikTok today. People have long aestheticized their kitchens, whether through a stylish pantry or a freezer filled with custom ice cubes.

Even before social media romanticized every inch of the home, the contents of people’s fridges have captured people’s curiosities — a 1950s Frigidaire ad displaying cakes and poultry on the shelves, for example, or a celebrity’s beverage-packed fridge on the show “MTV Cribs.”

“Aesthetics play this huge role in our everyday life, and I think fridgescaping is that extension of the visual culture where we want everything, even the insides of our fridges, to be a little Instagram-worthy,” said Heather Goerzen, the director for content and design at Havenly, an online design service in Denver.

An over-the-top fridge may not be for everyone — just read some of the comments on social media — but organizing a fridge in an aesthetically pleasing way is one of those “small, easy wins,” Goerzen said. “And visual satisfaction can produce within us that little dopamine hit.”

Sometimes people add framed photos of loved ones or pets. While this may be unconventional, Nonnahs Driskill — the founder of Get Organized Already, a professional organizing service in Pasadena, California — understands why people do it. “If something really makes you happy, it doesn’t need to be on public display,” said Driskill, who puts pictures for her clients in surprising places like closets or medicine cabinets.

Another benefit of fridgescaping, Judish said, is the reduction of food waste. She said she was “more excited” to eat her produce, because her food is on display when she opens the fridge door and is easy to find, rather than wilting in a drawer.

“Because I love how the refrigerator looks so much, it makes me want to make sure I use everything in it,” Judish said.

While Judish doesn’t have children, she does receive comments from skeptical parents. “So many parents comment that they could never do it in their home, which I understand,” she said. “Kids complicate things.”

In West Palm Beach, Fla., Julianne Brown, an artist, said her fridgescaping had made the fridge — and especially the produce within it — more accessible to her three young children. “We eat first with our eyes,” Brown, 31, said, “so when you can see it and it’s pretty, I think that makes it easier for them and easier for me.”

For some people, fridgescaping is a creative outlet. Tiffany Bishop, a 31-year-old event decorator, has a minimalist home in Naperville, Illinois, but takes a maximalist approach to her refrigerator. “Since the fridge is enclosed, I can let out that Lisa Frank inner child,” Bishop said, referring to the brand known for its cheerily decorated school supplies (and that has now expanded to offer cookie dough, which Bishop keeps in her fridge).

She started decorating her fridge five years ago and incorporates seasonal elements, like porcelain eggs and decorative mushrooms for Easter and rhinestones for her birthday, in July.

“If an artist’s medium is painting, they’d go to a canvas,” Bishop said. “For me, mine is my refrigerator.”