A 1950s Rental Kitchen with Chipped Cabinets Gets a $1,200 Makeover
If you’re a renter looking to upgrade your space, check with your landlord first. Some building owners are more flexible than others — especially if they believe your upgrades will benefit the property.
DIYer Cristina Villatoro’s landlord was willing to let her and her husband paint the cabinets and backsplash, change up the appliances, and add new flooring to their rental — and the result looks a lot better than the chipped-paint 1950s kitchen they started with.
“My first thought was that the kitchen felt really dark and tight,” Cristina says. The walls and cabinets were painted in different greens and maroon. The floor was old, maybe even original, and the entire place felt stale. I don’t think this place had ever had any sort of update apart from its layers of paint. Her vision? “Clean, open, big, and whimsical, but I wanted to keep its vintage charm … all while being semi-renter friendly.”
The chipped green cabinets got a tan paint makeover.
“First, our friends sanded the cabinets and walls down, painted, and added hardware,” Cristina explains. She and her husband enlisted their friends The Menas to help with painting, and around this same time, a friend Steve helped install a new hood in the kitchen so that they could paint or fill any accidental holes.
The new paint color for the walls and cabinets is Behr’s Navajo White. “The paint completely changed the way the room looked. It instantly gave it a vibrant, open, and clean feeling.”
The tiles got a paint job, too.
Cristina painted the existing backsplash tile in a checkerboard pattern herself, and she used Navajo White and Sherwin-Williams’ Kilim Beige. “It was a little risky, but I was just very careful with it,” she says, adding that it was cost-efficient but effective.
“it really made the room pop,” Cristina says, and she’s really proud of the DIY skills she learned. “Now, ugly tiles don’t stop me from saying yes to a place,” she says. She added a layer of Miracle Sealant over the top to protect the tiles from kitchen messes.
There are new laminate plank floors.
In addition to paint, new laminate floors make the room feel brighter. Installing the plank flooring was the most difficult part of the project. “Cutting to size was not easy,” Cristina recalls. “We almost gave up, but Steve would not let us, and he corrected those mistakes. Thank you, Steve!”
Wooden tables add extra prep surfaces.
Cristina and her husband added an IKEA FÖRHÖJA between the new range and fridge, and they also wanted to add a vintage piece to the kitchen without breaking the bank. (The total cost of the kitchen redo was $1,200, excluding the fridge and oven.)
“I did lots of OfferUp searches and yard sale visits,” Cristina says, until she found the perfect table to hold her microwave and espresso machine. “I was not willing to pay much for this particular item because who knows if it will fit my next home,” Cristina says. “It turned out to be my favorite little corner of the kitchen.”
This DIYer’s advice? Don’t be afraid to personalize a rental.
And her main takeaway from the entire kitchen overhaul is that “it does not have to be super expensive.”
“Many people … do not want to change much in rentals,” she says. “I would say ask your landlord and go for it. It’s your home for however long you are there.”
Inspired? Submit your own project here.