Widen Existing Kitchen Unit

[HPSauce]

Have moved into a house with kitchen units that were built around a fairly small fridge freezer. Panels on each side and cabinet above it. The appliance will need to be replaced soon but the new generation needs about 20mm more width and some additional height. Does anyone have experience of having an existing kitchen unit modified to make it slightly bigger or is it a case of replacing and building around the new appliance?

 

[Zenith63]

We had the same thing, needed more depth and height. By pure luck the cabinet had the manufacturer name on the back, so I was able to go to them and get a slightly smaller top unit and they matched the colour (this was surprisingly easy). I couldn’t find a good way to make it deeper without much more work so had to just accept the fridge/freezer sticking out a bit.

So I think it’s going to come down to whether you can find who made your kitchen and if it’s still in production. Might be no harm to post a photo or two here and somebody might recognise it and also make recommendations for alternatives.

 

[rustbucket]

Recently just did this myself. It’s relatively straightforward to widen it the issue is the cupboard unit above it. They are not easily modified. The carcass is probably mdf or chipboard. You will need a new door on the cabinet as it won’t be big enough.

In my case I had a wine rack over the existing fridge. I got a new wider fridge. Took out the wine rack. Used the existing end panels and just got a new bigger wine rack to fit over the wider fridge. If you have a pelmet on top or trim piece this also needs replacing.