I Love the Floor-to-Ceiling Citrus Wallpaper in This Galley Kitchen
As a New York City renter, I’m well accustomed to living in spaces where the bones of the space don’t always match my preferred aesthetics. My bathroom, for example, is basically all brown tile, and not a rich, chocolate brown or a trendy mocha mousse brown, either. But it’s a nice size, and it does exactly what it needs to do. Similarly, my kitchen is easily the nicest I’ve ever had in NYC, but with white cabinets, white walls, and gray granite countertops, it doesn’t match with my dream style, which is totally fine.
So to inject more personality into my kitchen, I’ve taken to covering the walls with art to give the space more color. I’m not the type of renter to do peel-and-stick tile, or to temporarily paint my walls or cabinets a different color, knowing I’d have to paint them back one day. Instead, I just stick to art, colorful kitchen gear, and nice, warm track lighting to make my kitchen feel a little more “me” while making sure that it functions how it needs to as an avid home cook.
But while I’m reluctant to make major, more permanent changes in my apartment (even as I am about to renew my lease for the fifth year in a row!), a recent project I discovered made me rethink my ways.
Jason Saft, founder and “chief magic maker” at Staged to Sell Home, did a project in a dated Greenwich Village apartment. In addition to staging the whole home, he swapped out some dated paint, replacing old furniture, and neatened up bathroom spaces. But it was what he did in the kitchen that excited me the most — and reminded me of the house I grew up in.
Before the transformation, the kitchen was just like mine — a basically all-white, narrow, shotgun-ish style space with decent countertop space, somewhat dated cabinetry, neutral countertops, and a stainless steel sink. Like me, the owner of the space (who was putting it on the market) had put a few pieces of art on the walls to pop against the white kitchen walls to make it more colorful.
But when Saft got his hands on it, he made a bold choice I’m absolutely obsessed with — he covered the white walls of the kitchen from ceiling to floor with a bold peel-and-stick wallpaper called Citrus from RoomMates Decor.
The wallpaper has a black base but is covered with gorgeous green leaves, oranges, pink flowers, red and blue butterflies, and other adorable flora and fauna. In the house I grew up in, the kitchen had a dark green wallpaper with grapes, birds, and leaves — it was so gorgeous and filled with personality, and was something that I just took for granted.
Citrus Peel and Stick Wallpaper
RoomMates
$35.99 (was $44.99)
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The wallpaper in this NYC apartment reminds me of that childhood kitchen, but more modern and updated.
Plus, it plays against the white cabinetry so well — a dark, bold, and simultaneously bright accent that adds dimension to an otherwise basic space — that it makes me rethink my whole approach to my own kitchen. And learning that the wallpaper is peel and stick, and not applied the professional, more intense way, makes me think that maybe I could pull a project off like this.
Or at least I’ll just stew in apartment envy for a bit longer!
Further Reading
We Tested (and Rated!) All the Sofas at Ashley — Here Are the Best to Suit Your Style and Space
I Just Discovered the Smartest Way to Store Paper Towels in Your Kitchen (It’s a Game-Changer!)
Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Article’s DTC Furniture
