Now that you’ve scored the perfect apartment rental, you might want to spruce the kitchen up a bit to make it feel more like your own. While simple apartment kitchen decorating ideas like plants or rugs shouldn’t violate your rental or lease agreement, always ask your landlord for approval for major changes such as paint, new cabinet hardware, and new fixtures. Getting approval will help to ensure that you get your security deposit back. Check out this list of simple and affordable kitchen decorating ideas to spruce up your new kitchen.
1. Add Paint to the Walls and Cabinets
Adding fresh paint to the kitchen will make it come alive, and you’ll want to spend more time in the room. If you want to choose a wild color or bold color accents, ask your landlord if it’s OK, and ask them if they would like the walls or cabinets painted back to the original color when you move out. Pastel colors such as pale yellow, light green, or sky blue add a comforting sensation to the kitchen.
If you want bright, vivid colors like purples or reds, it’s best to use these colors as accents. You can always paint a vertical line along a wall with the accent color or just the top half of the wall. Try and use paint that won’t come off when you wash the walls, especially around the sink and stove area.
2. Add New Cabinet Hardware
Do your kitchen cabinets have boring pulls, knobs, or handles? Changing the cabinet hardware to something fun can really brighten up the kitchen. You can choose retro-style knobs, intricately woven pulls, sleek chrome handles, or whimsical pulls with flowers, animals, or fun themes painted on them. Unless the landlord pays for the hardware, you can take them with you when you decide it’s time for a new apartment. Make sure you save the old knobs, pulls, and handles and put them back on before moving out.
3. Lay Down a Colorful Rug
Kitchen decorating ideas for apartments include laying down a rug. With so many styles, sizes, colors, and patterns found in throw rugs, you can easily find one to express your unique personality. Create unique kitchen themes for apartments by coordinating your kitchen towels and potholders with the rug. Add a touch of elegance with a wool throw rug that has an abstract pattern. Give your kitchen a modern, contemporary look with a black and white rug, or go retro with an oval braided rug in bright colors. Choose rugs that have a nonskid backing and that you can easily clean.
4. Update the Lighting
If your kitchen has an old fixture on the overhead light, outdated wall lights, or barely any lights at all, ask your landlord if you can replace them with modern styles. You can go to the local hardware or lighting store and find fun or elegant chandeliers, wall sconces, or pendant-shaped glass lamp shades. Adding under-the-counter light strips can help brighten up dark corners. Choose from LED strips, fluorescent ones, or puck lights to bring light into your kitchen.
5. Showcase Your Pots and Pans
Once you’ve moved into your new apartment and your friends or family want to know what to give you for a housewarming present, ask for cool pots and pans, like copper or stainless steel ones. Have one of your family members throw in a pot hanger and show off your collection. Mix the hanging collection up with a few copper mugs, a cast iron pan, and wrought iron kitchen utensils. Showcasing your pots and pans by hanging them adds a cool, rustic touch to any kitchen, including a small apartment kitchen.
6. Mix Up the Styling
Who says you have to have matching furniture, pots and pans, flatware, and cutlery? Have fun in your kitchen by mixing up the styles. Add brightly colored vintage stools to sit on at the kitchen counter. You can hang woven baskets on the walls and have a gleaming stainless steel sink all in the same room. Mixing up the styles, especially in a small kitchen, can create an illusion of space, and the variety of elements gives the kitchen an eclectic appearance. Check out our top 30 favorite home decor blogs for some inspiration.
7. Use Open or Glass Cabinets
If you have drab or dark cabinets and you prefer not to paint them, ask your landlord if you can remove the cabinet fronts. Just let the landlord know that you’ll put them back up when you move out. Taking the cabinet fronts down lets you show off your plates and cups that you’ve been carefully collecting from thrift stores, flea markets, and antique shops.
It’s nice to be able to view family heirlooms that your grandmother, mother, or aunts have passed down. A great way to do so is to display them behind a glass cabinet front. People can still admire the beautiful pieces, and they stay clean and secure behind the glass.
8. Hang a Mirror or Two
Use the age-old trick of making a space look bigger by hanging a mirror on one of the walls in your kitchen. Have fun finding a mirror that matches or contrasts with your current decor. The mirror helps the kitchen space look bigger and also reflects any ambient light which can help brighten up a dark kitchen.
The kitchen in your apartment often becomes the focal point for your daily life. Using these apartment kitchen decorating ideas can make your kitchen feel homey and welcoming.
When you’re ready to start looking for a new place to call home, search thousands of apartments on Zumper and find the perfect apartment or home to fall in love with.
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