Vintage GE Kegerator build

I'm pretty new to the site. Let me share with you how I got here...
A couple weeks ago I decided to build a kegerator. My goal was to build it completely from scratch, using the cooling system from a random donor fridge, and building a cabinet that would really blend in to the other furniture in the house (which was one of the conditions for my wife to allow me to put it in "HER" house).
While looking for this donor fridge, I found at the first garage sale I went to, a vintage GE fridge that worked for 25 bucks. That was not a deal I could pass up.

Within hours, I had completely new and even greater plans to turn it into a woody-inspired kegerator, painted black with a chalkboard-painted door.
While googling what year my new old fridge might be, I came across the following build thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/vintage-ge-kegerator-276170/
I was really taken aback by how freakin awesome kerber's kegerator is, and how similar it was to mine (and close to my vision).
So, I joined homebrewtalk so I could drool over kerber's creation, and then post the build of my own vintage GE kegerator...

Step one was teardown. I really planned on going all out like kerber did. I planned on replacing all of the insulation, I swear. But when I started taking off the first piece of sixty year old plastic moulding, and it snapped, I decided the insulation is probably fine. I did what I could to clean up any rust, and hopefully it's adequate.
Other than the brittle plastic, the only real problem with this fridge was the seal. It was totally shot. there were a couple earwigs living in it, too.



So I stripped the door completely apart, and left most of the rest of the fridge intact.
Everything got a fresh coat of primer and paint.

You can see in the bottom right corner where the moulding broke and had to be glued back together.



I built a cedar steambox using some plans I found on the net to steambend the woody-inspired framework.

I chose Cherry for the framework because it was on wicked-sale at Edensaw Woods. $2 per BF. They also had some remnants of Anigre Veneer they were selling for donations to their cancer foundation. Double win.
Steam bending was way harder than I expected, and for that matter, so was applying a wood veneer to metal. I did some research, and found that the only glue appropriate for this is a solvent based contact cement. It worked great, but left a bunch of wrinkles in my veneer. It was really disappointing, but if I just have another beer, that feeling of disappointment goes away pretty quick.

The cherry came in 1" thick pieces, and I had to plane it down to .165" to get the flexibility I wanted out of it. I used a stainless sheetmetal screw in each corner to ensure it wasn't going to pop up when closing the fridge door.

With some leftover cherry, I chiseled out a drip tray.


I originally planned on painting the entire door with chalkboard paint, but after seeing kerber's, I decided I would steal his idea and only put a strip across the top of the door. I got as far as buying the paint, but then decided that I didn't want chalk finger prints on the door and handle, and completely forewent that idea. I've seen some sweet chalkboard beer taps, and I like that idea. I may go that direction, but I can't decide.

But finally, after some little detail work here and there, I deemed it complete. I moved it from my shop in the barn up to the house, put in my keg, and plugged it in.

Nice work! I found a fridge that looks exactly the same from an estate sale. It's in pretty good shape, so I haven't done much other than some scrubbing. Still using the picnic taps, but hope to put faucets in soon.

Nice wood work. That's a unique touch and looks nice with the black.

nice looking