Imagine walking through a kitchen and lighting up at the sight of a refrigerator. It's bright, bold, unique, retro look, and colors simply popping.
Of course, it’s a Big Chill fridge.
A local Boulder production, Big Chill originated as a peculiar kitchen innovation that was ideated and created between uncle and nephew.
In the process of building a new house, Thom Vernon reached out to his nephew, Orion Creamer, who studied product design in school, with an idea for a high-tech, but retro-inspired refrigerator. Creamer was beyond intrigued. His aunt and uncle aimed to fashion their new home like an old beach house, vintage fridge included. Despite their best efforts to find the perfect product, they only found boring iceboxes.
A man of eclectic taste, Creamer was known to cringe at conformity. Not one to dress retro, but always ready to try things outside of the box. He was just the man for the job.
Creamer had always loved retro aesthetics and had spent his years as a broke college student collecting old refrigerator doors to decorate the walls of his home. He admired the design of that era and saw these doors as his artistic expression.
Dreaming of the days when artistic thought was apparent in appliances, he longed for statement pieces and was perplexed by the countless lackluster kitchen appliance designs he’d seen populate the market over the last few decades. Unimpressed with the white, insulated boxes, it was time to put pizazz back into appliances.
Officially making its first sale in 2003, the mission of Big Chill is to put art back into appliances and build a true retro replica while modernizing the functionality. Offering over 200 custom colors in its appliances — colors to replicate 1950s kitchens, nods to certain time periods, poppy one-of-a-kind pigments, you name it — the direct-to-consumer business prides itself on standing out among the crowd of more traditional appliance producers.
Big Chill focuses on niche designs that are unexplored and forgotten about, creating turn-of-the-century products with everlasting beauty in mind. The company continues to expand its product line as well, including working to bring toasters and blenders into the fold.
Whether looking to add vibrancy to your home, spruce up a vacation house, or are wanting your appliances to also be a form of artistic expression, Big Chill knows how to put the cool in your kitchen.
