Home Projects

6 Clever Ways to Customize Kitchen Cabinets With Contact Paper

published Sep 9, 2013
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

There are tons of adhesive wall decorations out on the market right now — call it contact paper, vinyl decals, shelf paper or removable wallpaper. Any of the above is a great go-to for enhancing your kitchen cabinets on the fly. Easy to remove, and very affordable, these are also a very do-able stopgap measure before your dream kitchen makeover.

The turquoise kitchen cabinets above, seen on Country Living, were covered with Panyl, a peel-and-stick product that comes in even larger size sheets than traditional contact paper.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

2. Emily Henderson used striped paper on the toe kick of Joy’s office kitchen cabinets, as seen on Design*Sponge.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

3. Or, go with a cheerful pattern instead of one solid color. This kitchen, from a short-term London rental home, gets its charm from a pretty violet toile. From Liga Studios.

4. You could get very creative with contact paper to cut out a graphic woodland scene — or something a little simpler. But we love the idea of using contrast with the existing material and contact paper (even standard white!). Spotted in The Kitchn post: A Hand-Carved Kitchen Cabinet Design…From Contact Paper!

(Image credit: Gilded Mint)

5. Line the insides only for a bright spot in an otherwise neutral kitchen. Julia Childs’ childhood kitchen (as seen on Gilded Mint) got a makeover that included some soft-toned wallpaper behind glass front doors.

6. We’re not entirely sure that this graphic and contrasting black and white look was created with contact paper, but we know you could get creative and use the material to give your kitchen a dramatic and geometric makeover! From the post: A (Temporary) Graphic Black and White Kitchen.

-Re-Edited from a post originally published 9.9.13 – CM