Kitchen of the Week: Making Over a Rental for About $1,500

If you’re a renter, it can be hard to love the kitchen you’re dealt. It’s also hard to justify sinking money into a renovation. However, there can be a balance. For a budget of about $1,500, designer and stylist Peter Dolkas spruced up his kitchen so that it flowed with the rest of his home, reflected his personal style and welcomed his guests to come on in, fix their own drinks and hang out for a while. “Everyone always winds up hanging out in the kitchen, so it’s nice to use the kinds of things you’d use in the other living spaces in here,” he says. “It makes it more inviting.”

Photos by Joyce Lee

Kitchen at a Glance
Who lives here: Peter Dolkas, an interior decorator and a stylist
Location: Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles
Size: About 90 square feet (8.3 square meters)

While his 1940s apartment building in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles had retained certain charms, not many of them were in the kitchen. Here is Dolkas with his back turned to the old kitchen before the makeover. In fact, he averted his eyes whenever he faced the kitchen.


Instead of fighting it, at first the designer used his stylist’s eye to just go with the existing kitchen. He lived with it for a while, but he was champing at the bit to make it reflect his own personal style.

“My style is definitely more traditional than modern, but it’s also eclectic,” he says. “The oak on the cabinets was cheap-looking and super orange, and it didn’t go with the gray on the countertops at all.”


The first order of business was painting the cabinets. We highly recommend getting your landlord’s approval before trying this at home, but Dolkas skipped asking for permission because he sensed some fear and hesitation. However, he was confident he’d be able to beg for forgiveness afterward instead. “She had seen the rest of my apartment and liked the style, so I just kind of surprised her with it,” he says. (By the way, she’s seen it, and she thinks it looks great.)

“The cabinets looked cheap and didn’t go with the gray granite on the countertops at all; once I painted them, it also really brought out the backsplash,” Dolkas says. He replaced large disk cabinet pulls with polished nickel ovals, an important finishing touch.

He added matchstick blinds all the way to the ceiling to draw the eye up and make the windows look bigger. He also installed new pendant lights for the option of a softer glow than overhead ceiling lights. A new towel holder adds more chrome, as do the brackets holding up new glass shelves, which also give him room to display everyday items and more personal items.

Pittock triple towel holder: Rejuvenation


Dolkas picked up the brackets for the shelves at Rejuvenation and ordered the glass online. Then he put his skills to work, mixing everyday china and glassware with more personal items. “My grandmother downsized recently, so I inherited a lot of her treasures,” he says. Her colorful plate and small silver bud vase are a lovely part of the display.

The sun that streams in from the windows allows Dollkas to keep potted herbs on hand for the picking, and they add life to the room.

Drinking glasses: Jayson Home; shelf brackets: Rejuvenation; paint by Benjamin Moore: Chantilly Lace (upper cabinets and walls) and Revere Pewter (lower cabinets); cabinet pulls: Rejuvenation; blinds: Amazon


Lighting, rugs and accessories were some of the items Dolkas had in mind when he talked about styling a kitchen more like other living spaces. His flair for eclectic style helped him see where he could use some elements that were unconventional in a kitchen setting. For example, he hung this mirror fashioned with a vintage frame. It reflects the light coming in from the windows and adds a unique patina to the room.


The range is in an alcove perpendicular to the sink. Dolkas fashioned a $15 towel bar from Ikea with hooks to transform it into a pot rack over the range.

“Art in the kitchen makes a big difference,” he says. The small seascape was a thrift store find he’s had “forever.” It’s an unexpected treat hung off-center over the range.

Pot rack: Grundtal towel rail, Ikea


These cabinets are right across from the range in the alcove; the refrigerator is just out of view on the right side of the photo. “It’s important to keep the path through the work triangle clear, so I put the coffee station out of the way over here,” Dolkas says.

Because the floor tiles “were not the most beautiful,” he covered them with area rugs, another living room kind of touch that adds warmth and texture. Also bringing in texture is Dolkas’ basket collection, which he’s been amassing for years. The baskets draw the eye up, and he can still grab them when he needs to gather up items for photo shoots.

Now the kitchen flows with the rest of the home, with its variety of textures, welcoming character and eclectic personal touches.

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