Baltic Birch Plywood Project -- Raising your Refrigerator

I'm a tall guy, and hate leaning over to peer inside my top-freezer refrigerator. I use the freezer much less often than the main refrigerator box, so it would make more sense to have the freezer on the bottom. However, as you may already know, bottom freezer refrigerators are really expensive. The lowest cost fridge is usually the top-freezer model.

Here's a nice solution. Just make a plywood box to elevate your fridge by 12-14 inches. In my case, I went 14 inches, which brings the top of my refrigerator to 83 inches -- just an inch under the 7ft height I am planning for my cabinets when I get around to building them. (I plan to make those from baltic birch from MakerStock as well.)

A nice feature of a 14inch box is that you can slide some recycling bins under the fridge. Mine allows for two good sized bins, one for paper and one for bottles and cans.

I made my box by ordering a couple of sheets of 12mm (~1/2in) Europly from MakerStock. I used the cut-to-size option to get the pieces I needed. I ordered the ply just a bit oversized and then trimmed everything just right on the table saw. I nailed and glued everything together with 2in pneumatically driven brads which is fast and strong.

Then I applied some gray semi-gloss paint to match the industrial decor of my loft. I positioned the box in place, tilted the refrigerator far enough forward such that the back edge could be hooked onto the front of the box and then tipped up the fridge and slid it in place. Easy.

Here's the finished result.