Kitchen Redo

Tell people that you live in an apartment and they instantly think bland, white, boring… I know I was a bit afraid of that when we first started discussing it. But I decided it didn’t have to be.

We are lucky, our landlord allows us to paint. However, we chose not to. Rather we (meaning me as my hubby only had the illusion of choice) decided to focus more on the pops and punches of color throughout. I really didn’t want anything to take away from our treasured items we wanted to display.

This weekend while spending a child free weekend garage-saling and bargain hunting at Goodwill & Savers I came across this lovely vintage contact paper. I knew instantly that this would go great with my rug and other kitchen accessories.

For those of you who have not discovered the amazingness of contact paper, well, you are about to be schooled! This amazing roll became the backsplash in my kitchen. In addition, I have used contact paper to cover the back of bookshelves for a nice pop of cover as well as cover the glass front doors to hide mess and increase privacy. The best part is that it is easily removable should you want to change up the look. As for the kitchen, it eases the clean up of the backsplash as it is washable. Much easier than trying to scrub yuck off the orange peel textured wall.

Installation is really easy. I simply measured the space I meant to cover. Cut to size. Cut out a hole for the outlet. Remove backing and adhere to wall. Voila!

BEFORE

AFTER:

I find that removing the backing as you go is easiest. I used my hand to rub the paper onto the wall. Because of the very slight texture there were really no air bubbles to worry about. When I did my glass doors and bookshelves air bubbles were a bit more prevalent. I used my credit card to try and smooth these out towards the edges. For those few lingering air bubbles that would not be squashed, I poked them with a small pin and then smoothed them flat. Can’t even tell!

I loved how it turned out and brought some color into my kitchen. Not to mention how it fit in with my colorful coffee pot and drying towel. It’s a nice contrast to the bookshelves but also ties in really well with their green.

So, though there may be snow flakes in the air (yep, I HATE this godforsaken state) their are April Flowers in my kitchen!

Contact Paper- hiding all my craft supplies so much more neatly!

Ikea Billy Bookshelf gone badass!