apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I like the subtle look of the patterned sheet metal. It's not so bold that it's going to interrupt a sense of order and make you crazy but it's still unexpected.

Patterned sheet metal certainly isn't a new idea- but it might be a good way to add some vintage appeal to a stainless kitchen.

The others seem really inappropriate for kitchen cabinets. They'd be much cuter on a freestanding piece of furniture. I can imagine a desk hutch (like the Ikea Alve Secretary) or computer armoire would look great with a fun fabric.

I love the decoupaged recipes idea... if only i could implement that into a temporary decoration for my rental kitchen cabinets that I could remove when I move out...

a girl can dream...

What perfectly timed inspiration! We re-did our kitchen last spring but ran out of $$ to do the upper cabinets. I'd been thinking of just painting them white to coordinate with the lower ones for now. Something like this will give them more of a reason to be slightly mismatched.

Thanks for the scroll-down layout instead of the thumbnails... :) me likey.

my*life*in*a*box:
You can create a temporary version by using laundry starch. When you pull the paper (or fabric) away, the starch washes off easily (using a dampened sponge without having damaged the surface. You'd have to experiment with how to apply it to the paper but, for instance, for fabric when you want to 'turn it into wallpaper' it's soaked overnight. In my rental days I did that fairly often and could quickly peel back an edge to prove it caused no damage.

i think these would be too busy for me on kitchen cabinets, but i agree with the above comment -- i'd love that yellow & blue patterned fabric combo on a standalone desk door. very cute!

1 c. butt is a staple in any recipe!

I loooove the blue one with the little bird. I'd like to see an entire kitchen with cabinets that color, but birds only on a select few doors.

Anyone have suggestions for those hideous laminate cabinets? Would any of these ideas work? I HATE my kitchen cabinets, but it's not in the budget to replace them.

BambiJo, you should be able to sand, prime and paint them. But don't skip the sanding and priming.

Currently I am doing up an old freestanding kitchen cabinet, turning it into a nice tv cabinet. so far i've sanded, primed and picked a nice pretty linen colour to paint it. To make it a little more interesting I am going to paint the inside faces of the doors with blackboard paint so we can tally up scores for Wii competitions our mates have and also to write down who borrowed what DVD etc... I am also going to stencil silver metallic panda's all through the cabinet isides; just for a bit more interest when we open it up to use the equipement inside. :) I was also thinking some cool vintage hinges and knobs would make it look really cute from the outside. :)

Any other ideas welcome!!! :D

pxlchk, I'm afraid to paint them because I don't want them to just look like painted laminate. Maybe I'll have to search for examples and see how it came out when other people did it.

You know what you could do? Go to Ikea and grab one of those laminate discards in the scratch and dent section. -Then try the sand/prime/paint thing on that to see how it turns out.