Styling Your Fridge. Yes, Your Fridge

Today is National Margarita Day. Too bad I don't drink margaritas... 


As a blogger with a domestic focus, I am often writing about decorating the home, ways to keep it clean, and storage. At times, it's a struggle for me to keep up with the work. Having almost all hardwood floors, dust bunnies are birthed daily, requiring lots of vacuuming. Add to that the fact that my son travels between two homes and I travel between two homes (three homes in total), I am always loading or unloading some sort of duffel bag. It's a lot of mess to wrangle.


Now I'm supposed to style my fridge?


I just finished reading the article A Curator of Food Curiosities by Jen Murphy (Food and Wine, March 2011). Centering around artist J. Morgan Puett and her artist's retreat, we learn that everything is art, especially food and it's containers. Explains Murphy, "Puett treats her fridge as an installation space. She removes food from it's packaging and transfers it to pretty glassware or vintage dishes."


Now, there is nothing more draining than looking at a mess and not tackling it. Currently, I am looking under my son's brown leather ottoman, and I have noticed an empty Valentine's box. Until it's thrown out, and the popcorn that's missed his mouth (again, always) is vacuumed up off the floor, I will not be able to relax. And while it's not often that I gaze into my fridge looking for inspiration, I do get a glimpse of what's inside the ice box on the occasion that I go in for some milk, or the makings of a salad. It is not a pretty sight. Plastic containers (oh, how I hate them) holding onto a few rogue strawberries that are on their last, moldy legs. Random wrapped cheeses, aging bagels that I hated to waste but never served, and brown paper bags full of unsalted nuts. Rough.


I've decided to start thinking about reorganizing the things that I eat and store, and the ways in which I can do that a little better. My plans are to do a daily end of day edit, first and foremost, and to think of cool storage options so that I am able to repackage foods in an aesthetically pleasing way, like Puett has done at her retreat.


I've already done this with my dry food storage. Marshmallows have a big vintage tin for the unopened bags (we store bulk marshmallows, for roasting by the fire and for hot cocoa year round), and a Ball jar with small ones readily available. My rice crackers are stored in old salsa jars, cocoa is stored in a vintage Hershey's tin. I even store my coffee in a small counter top tin that's about 60 years old.


As I plan my fridge redo, I welcome any ideas and comments you have. I will be scouring through my glassware, and bouncing ideas around in my head. I will keep you posted as to how it goes.


Oh, and tonight is Parenthood! Excellent. So maybe I will start thinking about my fridge redo tomorrow.