Zhahira's Profile

Dunno if this is possible for you, but to dress up the backsplash of my kitchen I put some postcard prints (of art nouveaux cooking drawings) in little cheap 3x5 frames and hung them up along the back splash. Nothing like a framed picture to look classy and make the kitchen feel more like a "room"! They've had a few spaghetti sauce splatters over the years, but I just wipe them down once in a while. They're cheap, so if anything truly terrible happened to them I could just toss them in the garbage and move on.

You could always get a whatdyacallit a trellis (one of those kind of crosshatched wood fences) to grow some ivy or plants up without ruining the structure of the building. But as others have said, I think paint is probably going to be your new best friend!

One thing you might want to consider is looking up some modern/industrial/eco design sites, magazines, or books. Believe it or not, there's actually quite a few ways to dress up cold, harsh concrete so it looks sleek and modern (can't think of any of the top of my head though!) I'd try to work WITH it, rather than against it, and find ways to make the concrete look intentional rather than trying to hide it.

Since there's a tight budget, would it be possible to replace JUST the bottom cabinets and keep the top? You could then paint or stain the upper cabinets and swap the handles and knobs to match the lower cabinets until you could afford to replace them all.

I would definitely splurge to replace the appliances though, and ripping up the carpet is a must. You could probably live with the wallpaper and the ceiling fixture for a while...

Just a note, the best place to stock up on stuff for a new apartment's kitchen is Goodwill! A lot of times college students will throw out perfectly good items because of time constraints (or laziness), or when older folks move into a nursing home or pass away the family has to donate perfectly good items. It's all usually in great shape, but you can get most items for less than a buck!

NICE! I looked at the Before picture and thought, "There's no saving that room." Great job totally blowing that snap judgment away! Great vision and creativity here. Absolutely love it!

Oh man, I would have liked to see the grocery prices/dinner prices broken out by neighborhood as well. In JP you can actually eat a semi-descent meal for like $25, but if you're in the Back Bay you're going to have to break that $50 note.

And I still can't get over the price of booze in one of the greatest "college towns" in the world. I live in Austin, TX now and I can easily scrounge up beer for $2 or $3 a pint on any night of the week!

Ding ding ding! Winner winner, chicken dinner! Wow! It's like you took a rental apartment kitchen and swapped it out for a high-end gourmet kitchen out of a mansion!

It is much darker, but that's a STYLE folks. Some people prefer darker kitchens (and homes) with richer hues. I think it will age perfectly fine, and it looks like it will be easy to update as time goes on.

LOVE IT!

My mom has one of these in her apartment, and she totally went the "closet" route. She put up a curtain rod with 1 or 2 curtains on it, and voila -- closet. She has her vacuum cleaner in there (too awkward to fit in other locations), and she's stacked plastic storage tubs up to the ceiling. Meanwhile, the curtains add some color and texture to the room, and it actually looks really, really good!

Curtains, rugs, and plants! Three simple items that instantly cheer up and personalize a room! Also, if it's allowed, I had a fish tank in my dorm room. :) BEST thing ever!

Granted, the construction industry is VERY different in Texas, but I tend to look at the materials used to build the structure and the time frame of when the building was built.

For example, in Texas the mid-80s were a little sluggish for the apartment industry, so apartments built here tended to be thick, sturdy, slowly-constructed (and thus with more attention). The insides might be a wreck and need renovation, but the soundproofing is fantastic. On the other hand, the 2000s were a boom-time in Austin, so a lot of buildings were slapped together hastily with cheap materials to start turning a profit. (I lived in one for about a year, and it was a nightmare).

One thing I've noticed that can be a tell-tale, weirdly enough, is the paint inside (if it's not a condo). If possible, lick your thumb and swipe it on the paint. If it doesn't seem to have much effect, it's good-quality paint (probably on a good-quality construction). If it starts to look weird or like tempera paint, it's crappy paint (probably slapped on a crappy build that's all about turning a profit).