Wallpapering Our Mid-Century Kitchen

*This post was made possible by the generous support of Fancy Walls and features gifted product. All opinions are my own.

Our kitchen has come a long way in the 14 months that we’ve lived in this house. We’ve peeled off old wallpaper, repaired and repainted the drywall, swapped out light fixtures, replaced the countertops and faucet, removed a bulky cabinet to let more light in, reconnected the crown moulding from where we took the cabinet down, installed open shelves, and last summer we painted the dated wood cabinets a new bright creamy off-white. You can see a little bit of the progression of this project in the photos below.

It’s like an entirely different space, right? It has taken every bit of our energy (and home décor budget) this past year to get to the point where we can say we love the room, but love it we truly do. It feels modern yet still retains the charm of our 1960s ranch, and the small space functions surprisingly well considering its pint-sized square footage. Our kitchen truly is my happy place, and I always look forward to cooking in it. There was just one final design detail that I really wanted to add back in before I could call the room officially “done.”

As much as I loved the new white-on-white aesthetic of our kitchen, I admit that it felt a little plain. Since our kitchen really is super small, there wasn’t much room for decorative accents other than on the open shelves we installed. I needed to find a way to add back just a little bit of color to the space to make it feel more like “us,” and I ultimately decided that wallpaper would be the perfect solution. Reason being that it wouldn’t take up space on the shelves or countertops, and I could pick a custom pattern from my go-to wallpaper resource, Fancy Walls, so that I knew I was getting the perfect print for our home and its color palette/vibe.

If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that we narrowed it down to two peel-and-stick wallpaper patterns: one called “Candice” and another called “Neutral Geometric.” You may recognize the latter print since I used it in my flat panel door makeover from last year. And as for the second sample, we had “Candice” custom color-matched to our favorite “Sea Salt” Sherwin-Williams paint, and I fell pretty hard for that retro-inspired look and subtle hint of color. We ultimately decided to go with the custom version of “Candice” because I thought the blue/green tone would help add timeless style to our kitchen.

I didn’t get any photos of the installation process, but you can see it in video format here on my TikTok feed. Just like most cases of wallpapering in our household, I did the entire project by myself without any surprises. I genuinely enjoy the challenge of wallpapering a room! It’s so much easier, in my opinion, to wallpaper versus paint because it gives you such an instantaneous transformation. As soon as I stepped back to gaze at the finished product I was absolutely smitten. The new addition of color was the perfect finishing touch in our kitchen, but I’m glad that I opted for a pattern in addition to color. Yes, I could have painted the room “Sea Salt,” but that curvy linear mid-century pattern really drives the point home that we love retro design.

Now, one thing you may have noticed is that we decided to stop the wallpaper just at the edges of the kitchen. Wallpapering this entire space—kitchen and attached open concept seating area nook—would have cost quite a bit more in budget, and it also would have taken many additional hours of labor. I also didn’t feel like the back half of the room really needed to be wallpapered.

I was lucky that the transition into the seating area side of the room was a crisp, clean one over by the refrigerator, as you can see above. The wall took a 90-degree turn there, so I just stopped the wallpaper right at that corner. The other wall, though, that the open shelves are on stretched straight into the kitchen nook (you can get a better sense of the room’s layout in the second photo below). To create a natural transition from wallpapered wall to white painted wall, I hung a set of floor-to-ceiling curtains alongside the window in the room. This gave me an intentional place to stop the wallpaper, and I think the solution worked just perfectly.

I thought I’d explain that in case you guys are in a similar predicament and needed help figuring out a way to transition from one wall treatment to another. If you have a window in the room, use floor-to-ceiling curtain panels to soften the transition! I had also considered a vertical piece of wall trim, and have seen people do that with success—my in-laws actually did that between their kitchen and dining room, and I think it looks great. I hope one of those two tips works for you.

Honestly, these photos don’t do the wallpaper justice. The color is much more saturated somehow in person, which makes the pattern pop more, too. I wish you could see it in real life! Maybe you can get a better sense of the colors and pattern in the video I put together—see that here over on TikTok, like I said. Anyway, we’re absolutely in love with this latest Fancy Walls peel-and-stick wallpaper transformation, and it has me giddy to jump right into my next wallpapering project of 2024. I can’t wait to show you what I have planned…

*I earn a small percentage from purchases made using the affiliate links above. Affiliate links are not sponsored. Rest assured that I never recommend products we wouldn’t use or don’t already love ourselves.