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“It felt like a pimple, sticking out into the space, and I wanted smooth skin,” Jenna Lyons wrote on Instagram while in the midst of a design project—and no, she wasn’t talking about her beauty routine. The former creative director and president of J.Crew and cofounder and CEO of LoveSeen was describing what her kitchen looked like before she renovated it. The giant zit in this situation? Her shiny stainless steel refrigerator.
Step one was replacing the appliance with a sleek-looking version. With the help of Jonathan Mosca, Lyons opted for a matte white refrigerator-freezer from Liebherr with matching hardware. Why go monochrome? It streamlined step two, which was getting rid of a dated wood upper cabinet and adding trim around the appliance so it looks like it’s totally one with the wall, which is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Distant Gray. Only the handles give its location away, and that’s if you’re paying close attention.
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Another bright idea worth stealing from her teeny refresh: the Inside East unlacquered brass faucet that’s only $500 but looks like DeVol’s $1,000 version. The fixture really shines thanks to the fact that Lyons removed the bar-height ledge connected to the peninsula. The whole room is easier on the eyes.
If you can’t invest in a fresh fridge to match your walls, you can still help it blur into the background with paint (just be sure to first apply a self-etching primer, a type of coating usually used for automobile parts) or contact paper. Camo isn’t the only camouflage.
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This story was originally published in August 2021. It has since been updated.