Do you Decorate Your Fridge?

Maybe we should.

Photo by nrd on Unsplash

Have you heard of fridgescaping? This is the art of decorating the interior of your fridge. We’re not talking about painting the outside of the refrigerator, nor in hanging up decorations on the exterior. Fridgescaping can involve curating the objects in your fridge to a certain theme with the use of various vases, dishes, flowers, well-placed vegetables, and flowering herbs and flowers. While the more commercial plastic bottles get shoved to the back, in front of them sits a feast not only for the belly, but every other sense in the body.

I won’t lie, the first time I saw an Instagrammer showing off her perfectly situated fridge, I wondered if it was just another attempt at internet fame through the unusual. However, the more I read about the fridge designer, the more I began to appreciate the underlying message of the Hobbit-themed fridge before my eyes.

There possibly couldn’t be anything more made for utility than a refrigerator, right? It has a very specific purpose—and as much as designers try to curve their behemoth shapes and splash on some slick stainless steel, these rectangles will remain a huge humming box in the middle of our kitchens. We don’t mind though, because it’s fulfilling its job. That box is keeping our milk from spoiling, and our bag of chicken nuggets frozen. It’s strictly utilitarian.

This is why the idea of fridgescaping seems so frivolous. Our pragmatic brains pelt us with questions: Why would we need to decorate the shelves that we will only see a handful of times a day? We don’t. Who is going to look in our fridge? Really nobody else. Why would we waste the time that could be spent on something else? Good point.

Yet the answers to those questions is exactly why the art of fridgescaping could be such a gift. See, God didn’t create a utilitarian world. Instead he made a world bursting with the gratuitous. He made thousands of trees in all shapes and sizes. He formed millions of insects with various body types, colorings, and personalities. He not only formed our world with truth, but he formed it with beauty.

It’s not a waste when we take time to do the same. We can add a little beauty to our otherwise production-focused world. We don’t need to start in our fridges, but maybe we could start with a picture, a photograph, a couch cushion, or a pot on our porch. Maybe we add a pop of beauty with a smoked pork or a decorated sourdough loaf. It might take a little more time. It might feel unnecessary. But bringing beauty into this world isn’t a waste. It’s one more chance to lift our eyes back up to our extravagant and beautiful God.