Before & After: A Bland Rental Kitchen Gets a Personality-Packed Upgrade
Vi’s garden apartment came with a standard, if somewhat underwhelming kitchen. After getting their landlord’s blessing, they painted over the yellow cabinets that were giving the space a somewhat grimy patina and called in the help of one of our favorite renter friendly products…peel and stick tiles.
From Vi: When we first rented this Brooklyn garden apartment, I absolutely was dreading the kitchen. It was dark and dull. The owner originally had the kitchen painted yellow, which made it look even dirtier.
We painted it a soft white (with the landlord’s approval of course) and we purchased these 4×4 inch removable tile stickers on Amazon. We stuck a few on the wall and we instantly saw how it transformed the room.
The whole project took about 3-4 hours and I spent $125 dollars!
The hardest part was when we started the project we noticed the right side of the counter was lower than the left side of the counter. We ended up just sticking the tiles from the middle (stove top) and moving our way out. Since the right side was lower than the left side, we ended up cutting the tiles into strips to fill the space. That was the most time consuming thing about the project.
I love how once it was all done, the room was immediately alive. It gave our kitchen so much personality! Now when everyone walks into our kitchen it’s the first thing they notice and it’s always, “I love your backsplash!” The kitchen definitely has character now. We wouldn’t have done anything differently.
Vi’s words of wisdom: Do it! It’s a small investment but worth it. Some tools that are helpful for a project like this are an exacto knife and a ruler. Straight lines are key if you have to cut around outlets or in our case, unleveled counters.
Thank you, Vi!