I have always wanted give blogging a try, so when Sage offered a guest post on her blog I had to say YES PLEASE. All the fun and none of the commitment? Sign me right up.

This is one of the easiest DIY updates I’ve done so far to make our kitchen not only livable but enjoyable while we figure out our long term plan for the room.

My boyfriend and I bought a 1950s ranch-style house about two years ago, and it was just bursting with the wrong kind of character. The walls were various beiges, the wall-to-wall carpeting throughout was shaggy green, and everything was coated with stale smoke and grime.

The kitchen was a brighter spot – all tricked out in yellow.

Yes, that is a laminate counter, backsplash, and floor all in different shades of yellow. Try not to get too jealous.

These were not the only features. We had handles in the middle of the upper cabinet doors, a wall cutting the room off from the rest of the house, and awesome boxy window cornices.

We knew we needed to make ALL THE CHANGES RIGHT AWAY… or at least some changes before we moved in.. Since we were doing a major project with a contractor that already included a lot of demo, it was no problem to add on demo of the interfering wall, and to rip out the offending floors, counters, and backsplash.

We were putting in bamboo floors throughout the house so we just extended those into the kitchen to go along with a new, open floor plan. And, since we like the current layout of cabinets and appliances, we felt pretty safe picking out an affordable new counter in a dark gray with blue undertones and a bit of shine.

But we just aren’t ready to commit to a tiled backsplash because we don’t know what we’re going to do with the cabinets. Will we keep them and repaint them? Install new ones into the existing footprint? Either way, we wouldn’t want to have precious tile in the middle of things.

So we lived like this for a while, and I almost stopped seeing the pitted wood coated in glue with gaping electrical holes.

Almost, but not really at all.

We had to do something to help us enjoy our kitchen while we waited to do a big renovation. It needed to be relatively affordable, easy, removable, and colorful.

After reading everything I could find, I decided that renter’s wallpaper was the perfect solution. It goes up like a big sticker and peels off without a trace, so it is ideal for those who can’t or don’t want to make permanent changes to their homes. And, while it is certainly not cheap to do a whole room or even an accent wall, it is affordable for a small backsplash.

I looked at a ton of options online – there is some great stuff out there!

I loved Champaign by Tempaper, which had a metallic sheen.

Also, Little Leaf by Chasing Paper.

My runner-up was Wild, also by Chasing Paper. (I was overruled by my Advisory Council, who deemed it too “creepy” to have all those animals staring out of the wall. Wrong on them: it’s adorable. I WILL get this in my house somehow.)

I finally settled on Tiles by Swag Paper. I have been lusting after beautiful bright tile like this or this, so the pattern lets me live a little of that dream while I wait. I also loved that it pulled in a lot of the bright colors that we have around the living and dining rooms – blue, red, and gold – while still having a light background. It also pulls in a bit of personal significance for my boyfriend, who grew up visiting his family in New Mexico where bright tiles are everywhere.

After staring at a swatch on the wall for a week I was ready to pull the trigger. I figured I could get away with just two 6 ½ foot rolls.

To get things ready, I (sloppily) patched up the wall and put up two coats of semi-gloss paint to give it something to stick to rather than the pitted glue surface. I also thought that using a semi-gloss might make it easier to peel off later. I went with the same paint we’re using for our trim, knowing that it needed to be white or the tint might show through and make the paper look dingy.

The imperfect paint job was so much better than the gross wood. I didn’t even mind living with it for a week while it cured.

Finally, it was time to put up the wallpaper. Starting on the back wall, I peeled just a few inches of the paper backing off the top of the first panel, lined it up along the top, and smoothed downward with a credit card, peeling off more of the paper backing as I went. At the bottom, I trimmed the excess with an x-acto knife and stuffed the cut edge behind the counter with the card.

It was slow going because there were so many nooks and crannies to measure and cut around, and I didn’t have much material to spare. Each panel probably took 15 minutes. Here are three:

And here is the job all done!

Just so you don’t forget how far we’ve come, here’s a before-and-after side by side:

Sorry for the poor photo quality. It looks a lot more colorful in person, with the blues popping because of the hue of the countertop, but isn’t overpowering. I love the pattern, and it goes a long way toward making our kitchen feel cheerful and homey.

I wish I could have gotten away with leaving the end piece next to the microwave as just plain wood. However, there are some holes and rough patch jobs there so it had to be covered. To create a simple (and free) border, I trimmed some spare paint stirrers down to size with the x-acto knife and gave them two coats of our trim paint. I glued them right onto the wallpaper so they’ll peel off with the rest of it when the time comes.

We’ve been living with our new backsplash for about four months now and it is holding up great. Renters wallpaper isn’t actually paper – ours is a vinyl coating over a light fabric texture – so it can handle being wiped down with a damp cloth. I just wouldn’t let any splatters dry on there or it might get stained. But so far it looks as fresh as the day I put it up, and I feel good that it will make it the 1–3 more years that we need before deciding on a final plan for this room.

Now, if only we could do something about those cabinets, handles, lights, appliances, baseboards…

Thanks for letting me share!