Thursday, August 19, 2010

Easy Kitchen Makeover: Add Color & Style for Pennies

 It's easy to add color and art to your kitchen without painting the walls. I'll show you how I transformed my kitchen from bland to colorful without spending a dime.

Before: I opted against painting my small rental kitchen. Color is added with my retro signage collection but I wanted a bolder statement and more functionality.

After: The two large pieces and various smaller ones and accessories add color to the kitchen.

Making Art: On Monday I showed you how to make art from scrapbook paper. I repeated the process to yield three matching Japanese style food themed art pieces. Frames were on hand, thrifted gifts from the mom. You can also frame:
 Art in progress. Chaos!
  • Foodie Calendar pages
  • Beautiful fabric
  • Illustrated version of your favorite recipes
  • Pages from vintage magazines or magazine collages
  • Your own acrylic or watercolor paintings
Adding Shelves: These twin shelves were another thrifted gift from my mom from a year ago. Shelves will add color and functionality, they're found in abundance in thrift stores and even languishing in your friend's garages. (Just ask: do you need that?)


Display Your Aprons:  My apron display isn't just pretty, it's functional and gives me easy access to my aprons. People try to buy my thrifted sea horse hooks all the time!


Display the Necessities:  I like easy access to my cutlery, so I arrange them in colorful tiki glasses. I've broken two tiki glasses this way- be careful not to place anything top heavy in glasses like these!

Group Like Objects: Collections look best when displayed in groupings of like objects; this creates a better statement. 

How do you add color and life to a room when you can't paint the walls? Sometimes that limitation will inspire creativity. Drop the despair-enduing Perfect Home Kitchens 3000 catalogs and don't look beyond what you already own to spruce up the homestead.

Be Back on Monday! I'm going on a cruise to the Bahamas from today to Sunday, it's a much needed break. I'll be back and writing blog posts on Monday!

This post is linked to: Get Your Craft on Thursdays / Somewhat simple / Transformation Thursdays / Show off Your Stuff / Hooking Up with HOH / Just a Girl / It's Party Time

7 comments:

  1. Lot's of great eye candy. I could spend forever looking at all of your treasures.

    I hope you enjoy(ed) your cruise, lucky you.

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  2. WONDERFUL! How amazing. I am your newest follower. Can't wait to look around some more. Linked over from PonyTailsFishScales

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  3. I love what you did with such a small space! Looks functional and beautiful!

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  4. Adorable! We live in a central city art deco apartment with almost all concrete walls. SUCH a pain for hanging all my framed art! However my kitchen is the one room I've managed to decroate to my liking! http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dN9NqnbVero/TE0R16S85WI/AAAAAAAAAX0/wbHUkJo_JJ4/s1600/31298_10150191075030112_811370111_12886360_1015857_n.jpg (Just showing off to you... haha) Love your blog.

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  5. Beautiful! I need to get a nice looking apartment first so I can add stuff I really love!

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  6. love your kitchen redo. I've been working on my office for a week and I keep thinking of your blog as inspiration.

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  7. Fun kitchen- some many cute items to look at! I love those black and white checked floors.

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