Rental kitchen makeover: from generic white to upgraded blue kitchen

2 Materials
$250
1 Day
Easy
I wanted to give my generic white kitchen an upgrade and a little bit more personality with some color. But being a renter, I had to find some inexpensive temporary solutions and I only had about $250 to work with.
I started with a very generic renter/builder grade white blank canvas.
To add some color on the back wall, I used a white temporary removable wall paper that I painted in a beautiful blue from Behr called "sailboat". I did this so I wouldn't have to repaint the wall the original color when I move out. I've since discovered that you can buy removable wallpaper in all sorts of different colors, like this blue one from Amazon, so that would eliminate the need to paint!
The other thing I did to add color is to make a removable backsplash with fabric that I covered with a custom tempered glass panel.
I removed the small cabinet doors above the sink to create open shelving.
And lastly, I added some under cabinet lighting - this added much needed task lighting and was really quick to do and will be easy to remove when I move out so I can reuse it in my next apartment.
All the changes I did cost less than $250 and have made a huge difference - now really love my kitchen and actually like to spend time in it! You can see the whole makeover in this video here and there's more details on what I used on my blog.
Suggested materials:
  • Removable Wallpaper   (Amazon)
  • Under Cabinet Lighting   (Amazon)
Engineer Your Space
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Lucy Marie Bernier Lucy Marie Bernier on Jan 31, 2018

    Beautifully done! At least you have White Cabinets to work with. What can I do w/ these ?

  • Dsouther Dsouther on Feb 23, 2019

    How did you get the back splash to stay up without permanently installing it?

  • Amazing Grace ! Amazing Grace ! on Mar 31, 2022

    I don’t have a question.

    I have a HUGE COMPLIMENT.

    That came out so SHARP.

    BRAVO

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