This Might Be the One Spot in Your Home You Haven’t Thought to Wallpaper Yet

A friend of mine recently upgraded her home office space, and the biggest, most notable change she made was the leaf print wallpaper she installed. Creating accent walls with temporary wallpaper is a cool, funky way to change the vibe of your space without a long-term commitment or fear of permanent damage. But have you ever thought about papering your kitchen island? If you’re lucky enough to have this kind of architectural feature in your cook space, you can turn it into a true focal point with a little pop of pattern and color.

Case in point: the North Carolina family home of a popular Black jewelry designer, Bobbi. Known for her signature bold polymer clay earrings, her home aesthetic is equally colorful and cool. One of the most unique aspects of her home, though — and according to Bobbi, her proudest DIY — is her kitchen island, which is pictured above and features a graphic, black-and-white gesturing hands motif.

Turns out, the pattern on the kitchen island was inspired by Pottok’s “Hands” wallpaper, which Bobbi fell in love with immediately. “I saw the wallpaper by Pottok and just knew I had to have it… until I saw the price,” she explained. Often, the more wallpaper you need, the more expensive a project can be, and Pottock’s Hands runs about $170 per roll. Since her kids are still young, and the kitchen island is a high traffic area, Bobbi decided to try her hand at creating something similar by drawing it instead. Creative DIY projects like this are probably a little easier when you’re a professional artist, so I’m only slightly jealous of the outcome.

To create this beautiful bespoke dupe for the “Hands” pattern, Bobbi used a Sharpie paint pen and traced every family member’s hand to go on the wall, filling the entire surface with hand outlines. The plan was to buy the “real” paper once her kids were older, but now it’s a sentimental part of their house they have no intention of ever covering up, and I can see why. Not only did she get the look of the wallpaper she wanted for less, it’s a deeply personal detail, too.

Depending on the size of the home, a kitchen island can be one of, if not the biggest, features in a kitchen. Wallpapering it — or trying a cool copy-cat project like Bobbi’s —is a great way to draw the eye to a spot that could easily be overlooked. Whether you decide to go with original wallpaper from one of the many cool companies out there creating renter-friendly prints or you recreate your own with paint, your kitchen island could definitely be on your list of places to paper.