OMG. You guys. I have found the perfect solution for those dated, ugly rental cabinets and the best part? It’s inexpensive. It won’t damage your walls. It’s easy. And it makes a huge difference, no painting required. Yeah, you read that right. Keep on reading because you don’t want to miss out on this incredibly easy rental hack.

Are you ready to find out what the hack is? Contact paper! But not just any contact paper, this faux wood grain contact paper is the perfect solution for creating updated, sleek, clean, modern white cabinets for your rental. It looks like REAL WOOD!

It has an adhesive film on the back that has a graph so it makes it easy to cut straight lines and measure. Measure your cabinet dimensions so you know how much adhesive film to buy. I have directions on how to measure your cabinets here.

When you first receive your film, roll out the entire film with weights on both sides and it will make the application so much easier because you won’t be fighting with the folds.

You need to clean your cabinets. Make sure you get rid of any grease, crumbs, etc…I used this ammonia-free multi-surface cleaner.

Peel off the backing and apply it directly to the cabinets. Yes, it’s really that easy! You can either wrap them around your cabinets or use an x-acto knife to cut off the excess.

Smooth it out using a soothing tool to get rid of any bubbles and imperfections.

Removal is easy peasy with no sticky residue left behind. Just check out this post where I test out ALL the “rental friendly” products to see if they REALLY ARE renter friendly!

I used the white faux wood adhesive and my initial plan was to paint the upper cabinets pink and the cabinets underneath black for two-toned cabinets. I was going to paint them because I could not find pink contact paper anywhere! The paint didn’t work unfortunately because it does have a smooth finish on the top (which makes it easier to clean). However, I did find this beautiful perfectly pink contact paper afterwards.

For the bottom cabinets I could have used this black faux wood contact paper but again, I didn’t see it until after I already purchased the white. But I still think it made such a huge difference and it was done on such a small budget that literally anyone can do this.

Will you be doing this easy DIY? What colors or patterns will you be using? I’d love to see some before/after pics of what you create!