In California, the rent’s pretty expensive. Any number of contributions could be responsible: the coastline, the beautiful weather, or the fact that it’s close to the entertainment capital of the world. Because of this, once you get an apartment, you may not even consider upgrading anything in your house. The last thing you’d need is an upset landlord. Here are a few improvements that you can make to your kitchen without making your landlord angry.
Add Extra Storage to Your Pantry
Apartments don’t come equipped with the largest pantries, so any extra storage you can find is helpful. If you take a shoe rack, the kind that you hang on a closet door, and attach it to a pantry door, you can use it to hold snacks, drinks, or whatever else you have. This can free up a huge amount of space in your pantry, and since it’s easily removable, there will be no trace that anything was there.
Tidy Up Under the Sink
When’s the last time you went under your sink? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Chances are that everything is just thrown in there, with bottles and various other things laying in all sorts of directions. Eliminate that with a tension rod. By adding a tension rod under the sink, you’ll have a place to hang all of the cleaning products that you have under the sink, leaving the bottom of the cabinet for other supplies.
Tension rods have multiple other purposes as well. If you’ve got TV trays or things that are similar, you can install the tension rods vertically to have a tidy storage for them. You can expand the space between the tension rods to store larger items.
Hang Cooking Utensils on a Pegboard
Even though you looked for all of the apartments for rent in Cupertino and found one with a spacious kitchen, there still might not be enough room for your cooking utensils. It’s time to make use of a pegboard! Hang the pegboard in the kitchen and hang all of the utensils that you have. Pegboards are amazingly sturdy and don’t require much to be mounted to the wall, so installing and removing a pegboard is fairly easy and mess-free.
Add Furniture
Even if you’re satisfied with your kitchen, you should consider adding furniture. By adding a kitchen island, you’re not only giving yourself some extra storage space, you’re adding a little visual flair to your room. Kitchen islands can be thin and very inexpensive, so you’re literally paying a small price for a big change to the room.
Remove the Cabinets
Open storage is a new fad, and thankfully, this small project won’t leave your landlord angry — assuming everything is removed and put back in place, of course! Open storage eliminates confusion when guests go to get a bowl or cup out of the cabinets, and it feels like it expands the room. For an added style bonus, line the cabinets with material. If the landlord allows it, feel free to let your creativity shine by painting the inside of the cabinets.
Modify the Lighting
Changing the lighting of the room can have a huge impact on how the room feels. By adding several compact flourescent bulbs, you’ll change the brightness of the room, and, as an added bonus, you’ll save on electricity costs. Compact flourescent bulbs have varying levels of brightness, and each one will give your kitchen a completely different look. They’re fairly inexpensive, so buy several and try them out. Better yet, occasionally switch them out to keep things fresh.
No matter what your kitchen looks like, there are many ways to improve it. These are just a few examples of easy ways to improve your kitchen. From simply repurposing items to light modifications, there are literally thousands of ways that you can make your kitchen look better. Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve been unhappy with your kitchen and took matters into your own hands? If so, what did you change about it, and did it upset the property owners that you made the modifications?