Mike, my dad, could not appreciate its beauty. He was raised in that optimistic postwar era, when housewives had nothing better to do than worry about how inviting their kitchens were. Companies responded by spitting out everyday items - like icebuckets and lawn furniture - in vivid colors with frolicky futuristic designs.

Cindy, my stepmom, would whine: "Oh, I hate that old fridge, Mike. When can we get a new one?" Mike, my father, would irritably reply, "Soon, soon."

In its heyday, this streamlined white and chrome wonder sparkled. But after 40-some years of kitchen mishaps, it became something of a gastronomic journal: the gooey orange flecks on the lower door might have been a glass of orange juice gone awry. The burst-shaped greenish spot could have come from a can of pea soup (with imitation ham flavor) heated up to shake a cold but the preparer sneezed before he could set the pot on the counter. The chrome was dull from greasy fingers opening and closing the door in middle-of-the-night searches for TV dinners or half-eaten candy bars.

About a year later, Mike called: "I just bought a new fridge. When can you come and haul the Norge away?"

I didn't plan on using it as a fridge; I wanted to make a bookshelf or linen cabinet. After careful consideration - Mike said the books or clothes would soak up the pot roast/meatloaf/Jello smell permeating every crevice of the appliance - I was open for suggestions.

But it still worked and I wanted to keep its use-as-a-cooling-device option open. Mike suggested I gut it anyway; this old refrigerator was an energy guzzler and Freon is hard to get rid of in this anti-Aqua-Net age.

Out with the compressor, thermostat, freon and the snarl of cords and grease and dust. I unscrewed the pale aqua blue, molded plastic door panels and ripped out the water-damaged fiberglass insulation.

I took the 200-pound former appliance home to Philly in pieces: a can of screws, a bag of chrome handles, two doors, the body, and a perplexing lot of pieces which didn't seem to come from anywhere.

I stripped it of paint and grime with an electric sander. An alabaster finish was all that was left. I polished the chrome and cleaned the inside.

The color had to be just right, like the blue Naugahyde seats in someone's grandpa's Buick. I brought a 40-year-old set of Melamine cups to Home Depot (the mecca for trashpickers and do-it-yourselfers). After taking a readout of the cup's color, the paint mixer-computer churned and jiggled for five minutes. It mixed bone white, Shamrock Shake-green and computer-screen blue and recreated a tincture from the days of finned automobiles and switchblade combs.

To avoid security deposit problems with my landlord, I lugged each door outside to paint them on my 17th Street fire escape. The body, too gargantuan to fit through the chicken-wired French doors leading out to the fire escape, I painted indoors. Aside from a few flies who met painted blue deaths and the occasional cat in search of a back rub, painting went smoothly.

The only real problem was the plastic door molding: it was cracked around the edges; so bad in some parts that the screw holes were gone. As with other complicated projects, by this point I was too tired and paint-fume sick to create a long-lasting metal frame or some other meticulously thought-out substitute. I applied thick and foamy metallic insulation tape instead. The result was horrendous: a half-assed mess.

Then I found the baby's-butt-pink and black and white Dalmatian fake fur I had leftover from an earlier project. I hot glue gunned it: Dalmatian on top, pink for the bottom.

The glue was dry, and every cotter pin, wingnut, mollybolt and lockwasher was back in place.

But the question remained: how exactly would I use this thing I had made?

I scanned the room for ideas. My eyes fixed on my new stereo: it sat atop a wobbly, silver utility cart, covered with dust, CDs piled on top, some strewn on the floor, wires tangled up in back.

I put the cart in the trash and set the stereo in its new home, the Norge.

The Norge's gold-tone metal shelves, unlike today's refrigerators, have little Lazy Susan-like wheels. This is especially advantageous when using the turntable, which sits on the top shelf where the most popular items went in the fridge - milk, scrapple, Rice Krispies treats. Beside it, in a recessed metal gully originally intended to hold soda-pop and juice, are my records - they fit as if the spot was made for them. When I want to change a record, I simply roll it out, choose an artist (records of the week: Adam and the Ants' Kings of the Wild Frontier and 25 Country Music Greats by various artists) and roll it back in for playing.

The next two shelves - where less central but equally non-nutritious foodstuffs were placed - hold my CD player and receiver; neither require as much space and movement capabilities as the top, but they fit just as nice.

As for the rest of the storage space: the freezer door alone holds 40 CDs and the freezer holds a whopping 200. The lower door has spaces large and small for more albums and CDs. The crisper holds (and hides) those pesky relics of the past: cassette tapes.

I use my Norge every day. And every time I hit play, I transform into a housewife from a bygone era, living happily, though vicariously, through an appliance, without which I would be despondent.

- Jennifer Darr