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This weekend we spent some time helping my daughter Britta move. And even though she only moved about 10 miles north of her previous apartment, it’s still never fun or easy to move your whole life from one place to another. And after you’ve done all the hard work of moving all of your stuff, there’s still the dreaded move-out cleaning left to do! Among all the horrible cleaning tasks involved in the process of moving out, one job in particular stands out to me as being especially unenjoyable – cleaning out the fridge.
It takes forever, involves a lot of awkward reaching and stretching, and is usually pretty gross, too. Some very clever person realized these things, and invented a way to prevent the sticky fridge messes that take forever to clean – fridge liners! Fridge liners can be placed on shelves and in bins, and are meant to serve as a barrier between foods and the fridge itself. So when spills and messes occur, you only need to remove and wash the liner, rather than struggling to wipe out the fridge. But you can pay anywhere from $10 to $25 for a set of fridge liners, which feels like a pretty steep for a few pieces of plastic!
I recently came across an idea for a DIY version of fridge liners that can be made for a couple of dollars. I gave it a try, and now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t know about this sooner! If Britta had had a set of these in her fridge, it definitely wouldn’t have taken as long as it did to clean out this weekend! Oh well, live and learn. :-)
Here’s how you can make a set for your own fridge.
DIY Fridge Liners
You’ll need:
- A set of placemats (dollar store mats work great!)
- A marker
- Scissors
To make liners for your fridge’s drawers, remove the drawer and set it on top of one of your placemats. Use a marker to trace the outline of the bottom of the drawer.
Cut out the shape using your scissors, and place the liner in the bottom of the drawer.
It’s a little tricker to do shelves, since they usually can’t be removed from the fridge, but it’s definitely doable.
Just place a piece of paper onto the shelf, and use your marker to mark the shape of the shelf.
Use the paper as a template on your placemat, cut out the correct shape, and place it onto the shelf.
The liners we made stayed put pretty well, but if you’re worried about them shifting around, I’d recommend sticking them down with a couple of removable Glue Dots.
Not only is the project affordable and practical, but its totally customizable, and looks really nice, too. We also thought it would be fun to color code your fridge using your fridge liners. For example, the cheese goes where the yellow liner is, the veggies go where the green liner is, etc.
Note: We loved the look of the colored liners in the drawers and on the fridge door shelves, but the dark-colored liners on the interior shelves blocked quite a bit of light. If you’re worried about that, another option would be to use clear placemats for the liners of the interior shelves.
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