Forget Basic Drawer Liners — There's A Cuter Alternative

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Drawer liners are great in every room, but they work especially hard in the kitchen where contents run the gamut from ceramic plates to metal tools. You don't want items banging into and damaging each other, scratching the drawers themselves, or making a whole bunch of noise. Liners help things stay quietly put.

The most common type of kitchen drawer liner comes in an admittedly uninspiring roll of neutrally hued plastic or vinyl material. It gets the job done, but what if you could get the same benefits of drawer liners with a kick of style? We are all about trends that give your kitchen more personality. Just think of how much more fun it would be to open a drawer and see a vibrant color or pop of print that matches the rest of your kitchen aesthetic. The secret? Peel-and-stick wallpaper.

Using peel-and-stick wallpaper means the sky's the limit on what patterns you can use to upgrade your drawers. Choose something that will spark joy every time you need to grab a trivet or spoon, and that complements the room's design scheme. When it comes to installation, things couldn't get simpler. Measure your drawer and cut the wallpaper a little larger so you have room for error. Lay the paper along the bottom of the drawer and begin to peel off the backing a little at a time, smoothing out any air bubbles as you go. When you're done, use a precision knife to slice off excess paper.

There's an alternative if you'd rather not apply the wallpaper directly to your drawers. While installing peel-and-stick wallpaper as drawer lining makes cleaning the inside of drawers a snap, this method means you can still easily wipe the drawer interior down, but also lift the liner out to deep-clean the drawer itself when needed. You can also swap out patterns should the mood strike. The tip is to apply the wallpaper to cardboard: Measure a piece of cardboard to the drawer's bottom, cover it in wallpaper, and pop it in.

Peel-and-stick wallpaper is a cheap trick for protecting the inside of kitchen cabinets, too. Once you find a pattern you love, use it to create a thematic motif throughout your kitchen, including to line open shelving. The options are practically endless: From a marble-print peel-and-stick wallpaper, perfect for modern, monochrome kitchens, to a shiplap-print wallpaper ideal for farmhouse-style rooms, and a botanical wallpaper, a dream for bohemian kitchens. Checked prints for retro rooms, mosaic prints for artful spaces, and even animal prints for a hint of wild style — there's something for everyone.

This hack also means you can repurpose leftover material to line drawers if you were using wallpaper in another room. And don't stop at wallpaper: You can even use old tablecloths as drawer liners with the help of fabric tape, or really anything else you have scraps of that you like.