Budget Kitchen Facelift: This Renter-Friendly DIY Updates A Space With Dated Oak Cabinets

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home, and it makes sense. It's where you spend time cooking for your family and chatting with guests over coffee. It's a gathering place, and one that deserves to be as aesthetically appealing as the rest of your home. This is a tough order to fill when you're working with outdated oak cabinets in a rental. Finding modern kitchen ideas that are sleek and streamlined, but far from boring, doesn't have to mean tearing out cabinets and losing your damage deposit. It can be as easy as updating the backsplash.

This is a renter-friendly option because you can use a removable peel and stick design rather than grout and tile. Look for creative kitchen backsplash ideas bursting with originality that are also easy to clean — and later remove. The great thing about this hack is that you can peel everything off and put up a whole new design if you get sick of your first choice. There are so many fun ways to play with color, texture, and placement, and none of them involve hiring a contractor to tear out your cabinets. 

To make the optical illusion of a kitchen makeover work without touching those outdated cabinets, you need to choose a backsplash with impact. One way to deal with the old looking cupboards is to lean into them. Farmhouse kitchens are a fun way to embrace the oak, and you can add charm with faux brick, shiplap, or subway tile like Art3D peel and stick panels. If that's not your cup of tea, try a pop of color to draw the eye with products like AWLZJZQA retro Mexican tile stickers, or a scalloped pastel like Livelinyn pink scallop wall tiles for a soft whimsical touch.

As the adhesives won't stay put forever, this is a great time to branch out and try a placement technique you might not try with a permanent product. Use a different color behind the sink than you do the rest of the wall, or use the stick-on tile to make a shape on the wall, instead of a solid block. No matter what style or placement you choose, one thing will become clear with this DIY: Maybe it's not the cabinets — it's the dated backsplash choice that's ruining your kitchen's design aesthetic. Now you know how to fix it without blowing your decor budget.