As anyone that has a small kitchen will know, trying to cook when there is barely room enough to mix, let alone flip, a pancake can be really frustrating. Any attempts to be Gordon Ramsey or Emeril Lagase are scuppered as you have nowhere to put your ingredients, little room for chopping and your elbows keep bumping into cupboards.
I would love to move house and get a bigger kitchen so I could fully express myself in the kitchen but I cannot afford to so I’m stuck with what I’ve got. And what I’ve got isn’t great. In short, it’s tiny. And if any other member of the family is in there while I’m rustling up something to eat, it can be something of a health and safety issue.
One of the major problems I had until recently was that the doors to my tall fridge freezer opened into the room. This meant that I had to walk round the door in order to get to the contents. Or, if someone else opened the fridge door while I was cooking, there was a good chance that they would bump me or I would bang into the door. I looked at moving the fridge further away from the cooker but the only other place for it would have blocked the door to the room. And that wasn’t an option. I also considered turning the fridge around – but that just took up more valuable space.
Then it dawned on me. Could I reverse the doors on my fridge freezer so that they open the other way? I checked the manual and it said I could swap the doors round. I was over joyed. All I had to do now was to actually do it. How hard could it be? There weren’t any instructions so I consulted a friend. In the end it wasn’t hard at all. He gave me a step-by-step guide.
This is what I did:
Before I lifted a screwdriver I had to empty the fridge of all its contents. This meant the food and milk and also the shelves and compartments had to be taken out.
I then unplugged the appliance and turned the fridge freezer on its back (with a little bit of help from the other half).
As I did this I made sure to wedge something (in this case a tea towel) at the top to make sure that the evaporator coils were not damaged when they came into contact with the floor. This is a very useful tip by the way.
The next bit is the complicated bit.
The doors had three hinges. One at the top, one in the middle and one at the bottom. The top one had a plastic cover over it so I removed that. The bottom one was held in by one of the feet so I removed that too. Both just levered off with a bit of pressure.
Once that was done I simply unscrewed the hinges using the appropriate sized screw driver. It was suggested that I start by removing the lower hinge first. This was excellent advice. By doing this I could take the door off, allowing the upper hinge to be removed easily.
With the door now off I located the screw holes on the opposite side of the fridge. They were covered by caps so I removed those, putting them aside to cover the screw holes where the hinges used to be. There were also caps on the top of the door so I took those off too.
Then I simply to re-hinged the doors on the opposite side, starting with the top hinge and working my way down.
In the end it was fairly straightforward. My friend assures me that the same approach will work on an under the counter fridge or freezer – although you probably won’t encounter a middle hinge. Anyway, since I’ve changed the way the fridge freezer opens I’ve allowed myself some more space for cooking. Ramsey and Lagase had better watch out.
About Will Strauss
Will Strauss is a freelance journalist, editor and designer based in Leeds. He covers a range of subjects from television and radio to DIY and construction via music and sport. He is currently writing for ASD Appliances, the online fridge spares company.