Your new accommodation is far from homely, more prison-like. With big heavy doors, brick walls with your cell style bed. And as soon as you step foot into the kitchen? Boring! And after the first week? Boring and ridiculously dirty and messy!

The kitchen is never going to be on the designer or show home level, but at least you can make the best of it. After all, it is where you will spend most of your time socializing and drinking, of course. So why not make it pretty?!

Here’s some images your can take inspiration from, with an added tick list at the bottom. Enjoy and get creative! We’d like to see some of your kitchens too, so get decorating and send us your pictures. We may even post them up for all to see.

Light and plain kitchen? Play with pastels! Add a rainbow with fruit bowls and stack-able mugs and tins.

If you’ve been given coloured cupboard doors, match that colour with your plates and accessories. Or find the best complimentary colour.

Those horrible ugly looking fire hazard boxes? Play on the colour, take red into your kitchen. Or add prints.

If you’ve been blessed with a white kitchen, use bright and bold accessories to add some character. Discuss with your housemates what colours they’d like. Don’t be afraid to clash!

The points that you should always cover in order to make your kitchen feel loved are:

– Don’t be afraid of colour. You can also use this as a way to colour coordinate each others belongings. I.e. one person has purple towels and plates and another has green and so on.

– The accessories are what make it more homely. Tea, sugar and coffee containers, utensil holders, toasters, kettles and fruit bowls.

– Add some soft accessories. This essentially means, towels, table cloths/runners and place mats. These are the finishing touches that a lot of students often forget, and they aren’t expensive.

– Introduce some nature. Fruit and flowers in your kitchen really make it come alive. Go for plastic fruit, so it doesn’t go bad and plastic flowers so they don’t require regular waters. They still give the illusion of bringing the outdoors in.

– Keep it clean and tidy! Obviously because it does make it look and feel better to be sat in but also for health reasons. Mould on plates and cutlery and an overflowing smelly bin are NOT good for your health.

Go on, give your student kitchen some TLC. I dare you!

Helen-Louise @ Student Foodie 🙂