The week after I moved to Virginia Beach, I did the most fun and relatively easy DIY project that transformed my basic little apartment kitchen! It'll be a little while before my new apartment is 100% decorated and I can share a full tour with you, but I did want to get this post up sooner as I'm still so excited about it. Here's everything you need to know about my peel and stick kitchen backsplash!
I have been having fun decorating my new apartment in Virginia Beach and making it my own. Because I've moved around a lot in my 20s, this is actually the fifth apartment in the past five years that I've lived in! While I definitely enjoy apartment living for this stage of life, after you've lived in apartments for awhile I feel like they all start to seem very similar. I really didn't like the kitchen in my last apartment in Charlottesville (in fact, I disliked it so much that I never shared pictures of it on the blog), so I knew whatever apartment I got here in Virginia Beach I wanted to really enjoy my kitchen and spend more time decorating it.
I had no idea that peel and stick backsplash was even a thing until a few months ago. I first read about it on a blog I follow, Basic Britt. Brittany is currently renovating a condo in Ohio, and transformed her new kitchen with peel and stick backsplash. I couldn't believe the before and after photos that she shared in this blog post! I have always loved the look of colorful or patterned backsplash in a kitchen, but I always assumed I'd never be able to do this unless I was a homeowner, since you obviously can't install real backsplash in a rental.
Learning about peel and stick backsplash opened a whole new world for me! There are tons of different options for it on Amazon, and I'm sure that other retailers sell lots of options as well. I just decided to go with Amazon for the sake of convenience. My kitchen dishes are the iconic Blue Willow pattern, so I wanted to go with blue and white decor in the kitchen, and I was looking for blue and white backsplash options.
This blue and white peel and stick backsplash had good reviews on Amazon, and I thought the design was beautiful. It was also under $20 for the amount that I needed, what a bargain! I decided to give it a try. I measured the wall in my kitchen and decided to order extra so that if I messed up on any of the pieces, I'd have plenty to still work with. This ended up being a good decision to order more, as I did indeed mess up with cutting a piece and had to re-do! Here's the before picture:
My friend Michelle came to visit my second weekend in Virginia Beach, and helped me install the backsplash. I think it made it much easier to have a second person to assist with measuring and installing. It took us about two hours to do. It definitely wasn't difficult at all to install- we just wanted to take our time to do a good job with it. The back side of the contact paper had a grid on it with measurements that really helped with knowing where to cut the pieces. As far as installing it, you literally just peel and stick! Michelle took out the electric outlet plates and then re-screwed them over the contact paper to make it look even better.
Reviews for all of the peel and stick backsplashes that I looked at on Amazon all boasted about being renter friendly, and easy to remove without any wall damage. So hopefully that will be the case! I obviously haven't removed it yet so I can't guarantee if this doesn't damage paint at all, but I'm hoping it won't. The adhesive on the paper didn't feel super strong. Even if it did damage the paint a little bit... I feel like it will have been so worth it to have enjoyed this while I lived here. They can take my deposit- ha! 😉 Below is what it looked like all finished.
For more about my new apartment, check out this post of everything that I purchased for it!
God Bless,
xoxo Annaliese
This made such a big difference!
ReplyDeleteThis looks so cute!! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDelete