Owing to cultural and time zone differences, international students studying far away from their homes struggle to re-create home-like experiences. Living in a shared accommodation with new people further adds to this struggle, since common spaces become non-conducive to home-like activities. We study kitchen space in this context, and offer a solution called fridgeTop, which seeks to reduce the threshold of a kitchen's perceived public space in a shared accommodation by fostering familiar family interactions on a smart fridge surface.