OMG that is awesome!! I want that!! That is so great. Seriously. (If I did it it would be bumpy and the seams would be all crooked, sigh. I have geometry problems.)

You should post pics of that somewhere that collects "good ideas to fix up your place." There must be that, right?

You can build a major appliance from scratch!. . .

I'm jealous!

Out of contact paper and scissors no less!

Claudia - I cheated! If you find a very muted vinyl pattern, like this one at Target:
=Click to see image=

... you can just cut it into variants of 5x5 pieces and stick them up like that. I didn't match any seams, you can sort of see my squares in the light shine of the second picture. the pattern sort of tricks the eye. best of all, my landlord can't complain as it peels off easily and with almost no mess like tape.

Oh wow. That is lovely!

I am totally going to do that! My awful fridge is fake wood grain, I kid you not.

Is there a big selection at Target, or did you have to buy online?

That is brilliant, I am so doing this to my fridge.

Hey, one could use stainless steel contact paper if one wanted stainless steel-lookibng appliances...

found it in the store, it's 'magic grip' type. i had the idea because my office cabinet is likewise pretty gross and looked good after i covered it the same way. target didn't have a large selection, just two or three types. i tried looking for it online but couldn't find it anywhere. however, looking up online now, i found the following website which could help.

http://housewares.hardwarestore.com/37-188-contact-papers.aspx

i bet you this one would look very similar:
http://housewares.hardwarestore.com/37-188-contact-papers/contact-paper-125230.aspx
and i might try to buy this one to do a graphic bird/tree cutout image on my likewise ugly ugly cabinets:
http://housewares.hardwarestore.com/37-188-contact-papers/contact-paper-125231.aspx
http://housewares.hardwarestore.com/37-188-contact-papers/contact-paper-125226.aspx
http://housewares.hardwarestore.com/37-188-contact-papers/contact-paper-125223.aspx

my kitchen is just awful, a real nightmare - old utility painted metal cabinets, paint splotches everywhere from the same crack apartment painter and i'm just too embarrassed over it - my best friend and her husband coming to stay with us in two weeks to be tourists. so we're trying to do a simple and CHEAP reno in the next week to make it more livable while not offending my landlord. i think i'm going for graphic 'french shabby chic.'

anyone with good advice would seriously be appreciated. i have horribly painted tile countertop (which is peeling) and old appliances. the kitchen was likely cobbled together more for 'cheap and needed' instead of 'thoughtful and useful.'

eatdonuts, you can post your own photos directly to the thread by using the Image button below the comment box and pasting in the plain url (no width or height or other info). And you can see photos that other peoople have posted in-thread if you click on the top-of-the-page black bar text "images on".

So for your last image of the fridge, you would just paste

http://flickr.com/photos/traceface/2279809686/

into the pop-up box that appears when you click "Image" below the comment box.

Oh! And it looks totally faboo!

yay, thanks for the image advice, i'll do that and was - um, too lazy - to look it up. sorry!

i am really glad other people are going to do this! please post photos! now i'm dying to see what everyone else cooks up.

That is an amazing fridge.

Wow, that is beautiful! I am going to do this to my crappy but functional file cabinets!

(And why would your landlord complain? You made his kitchen look better!)

Gorgeous!

My mum did the same thing back in the late '70s, early '80s. She put harvest gold contact paper on the top and a woodgrain on the bottom.

In one of the apartments we rented she got permission from the owner to put contact paper on the kitchen counters. She used a woodgrain that looked like butcher block. It turned out so well, the other renters were upset that mum got "new" counters.

You can't CP your tile counters but you can repaint them. I don't know the ins and outs of it, but this link looks good as does this one.

Best Fridge since William Perry.

I want to do this!

I covered the counters of my first (campus housing) appartment with marble contact paper. We got new building managers befor I moved out, and they were super jealous of our fancy counters. I didn't even remove the CP when I moved out.

That is beautiful! I'm really, really impressed. It makes me want to do my fridge, but I have boxes to unpack and a million other tasks that come first.

You did an awesome job.

cp me impressed!

Now I know what I'm doing to my kitchen cabinets (disgusting fake woodgrain with yellow clown noses for handles)! Thankyou for posting this! What a great idea!!!!!

Oh, I did this to my iBook - I'll post a picture this evening when I'm home! Mine's fake woodgrain though.