Did they move the location of the refrigerator from the previous owner's location during renovation?
I ask this because they broke walls down, built walls up, put in doors, removed fire places to replace it with a chalk board only to obstruct accessibility for 6 mths or so with a pile of toys & so on. If you were doing all that then why not put the refrigerator elsewhere!?
Addressing your "it doesn't make sense" there's also the thing with the house being built a VERY long time ago & no one anticipating cupboards that you could get electricity to to keep perishables cold or frozen. The house wasn't built with modern design sensibilities in mind. If they wanted things like the Florida vacation home they should've had a house built from scratch or bought a newer home.