I saw an episode one time where they restored an old fridge and repainted it a turqoise color with a racing stripe down the middle. He told the poor sap that his ref was worth something like $4k.
I found the same fridge, painted it the same color, with the same racing stripe, and I had a hard time getting $1200 bucks for it.
Before:
After:
My cost on that was about $500. + 10ish hours of labor.