Plus:

• Watch a detailed video on how to wallpaper your fridge.
• Belle of the wall

My kitchen is just for decoration—I don’t even know if the oven actually works. That’s ironic, because it’s the only space in my apartment that I’ve never figured out how to decorate (one friend jokes that I’ve squeezed 401 design ideas into 400 square feet). And sadly, the “wall of gloom” (so nicknamed because a former tenant scrawled demented phrases like he is my ghost on the fridge in still-visible indelible marker and my cabinets are a crappy laminate) is half of my living room.

Nick Olsen—the assistant to interior designer Miles Redd and a DIY blogger at dominomag.com—found a way around his blah rental kitchen by ingeniously outfitting his fridge with a zany floral pattern. I’m intimidated by wallpaper, and even more intimidated by the prospect of losing my security deposit, but Olsen assured me that it’s an easy and temporary fix.

“The trick is to apply the paper with rubber cement: You can peel it off if you move, remove most of the paste by hand and attack stubborn residual with Goo Gone.” Since the exposed area of my fridge is small, we chose a hypnotizingly geometric pattern of bridled horse heads from Cavern Home (cavernhome.com). At installation time, Olsen dispelled my other misapprehension: “Wallpaper’s not dainty—you can manhandle it.” After taking rough measurements, he cut out a section of paper and folded it along the edges of my fridge: “Don’t worry about creases; they’ll come out when it’s pasted on.” Once the fit was relatively precise, Olsen slathered rubber cement on to the front of the fridge using a sponge brush, working quickly to adhere the paper before the paste dried. “Apply a bunch up high, because it holds most of the weight of the paper.” Wielding a thick paperback book like a squeegee, he ran it along the paper, removing trapped bubbles.

Once the fridge was wrapped (it took about 45 minutes), Olsen used an X-Acto knife to trim any excess. I had planned to paper the cabinets too, but he argued the effect might be too stimulating. Instead, he created graphic black borders on my cabinets with straightforward electrical tape. The transformation is shocking: the kitchen is now my favorite “room” in the house.

THE SUPPLIES

One roll of wallpaper $155
One quart of rubber cement 7
1" foam brush 1
Two rolls of black electrical tape 4
+X-Acto knife 3
TOTAL COST $170