Most kitchens in older apartments leave a lot to be desired – old cabinets and appliances, scuffed up floors and insufficient cabinet and counter space. Here are seven ideas for making your rental kitchen more welcoming and useful:
1. Revive your cabinets
Few landlords allow renters to paint their kitchen cabinets, but there are other ways to give your cabinets a new look. Sticky fingers, kitchen grease and cooking splatters can make your cabinets look dull and dingy, so one of the best ways to spruce them up is by giving them a good cleaning with a solution made with equal parts of warm water and white vinegar.
2. Give your cabinets personality
Replacing the hardware on your cabinets and drawers will give them a new look. There are hundreds of knobs and pulls to choose from in a variety of shapes, finishes and sizes. Just keep the original hardware so you can swap them back out before you move. Be sure to your landlord for permission before replacing the hardware.
3. Mask scuffed-up floors
Whether your kitchen floors are scuffed up hardwood or linoleum, an area rug or a carpet can go a long way toward making your floors look better, even providing a pop of color. It’s easy to make an area rug out of a carpet remnant sold on clearance. Just be sure to measure before you buy and decide ahead of time whether you want to cover your entire floor or allow some of the floor to peek out.
4. Hide your appliances
If your refrigerator is 1970s avocado green or 1980s copper, there are a few creative ways to hide the color. Most online photo and card providers will turn your photos, or any picture, into a magnet. Buy enough and you can create a collage or a giant photo that covers the front of your refrigerator and dishwasher.
5. Add some color
Your landlord might not let you paint the walls any color except white, but you can brighten up your kitchen with vibrant colors by adding colorful accessories like dishtowels, curtains, storage containers, spoon rest and teapot.
6. Create extra space
There are a number of ways to carve out more space in your kitchen, either by adding stackable shelves to your cabinets or wall-mounted shelves to the walls. If there is room, you can buy a side table or metal cart to use for extra storage or counter space.
7. Make it personal
If you have empty wall space, add a few framed photos or pictures to make the space feel more like your own. Keeping the artwork to a central theme, whether its food related or not, will help the kitchen look more pulled together than hanging pictures that aren’t coordinated. For an even more pulled-together look, use the same type of frame for all the artwork hanging in the room.
Whether you’re renting out your home or an apartment, staging the space is crucial to grabbing attention from the best renters. Get the full scoop on staging your home today.
