When you rent your place, the first challenge on your endless to-do list is how to make it a home without upsetting your landlord. There are so many ways to improve the look of your rented space without sacrificing your deposit. Kitchens and bathrooms, however, are notoriously dire in Dubai rented properties and it’s really hard to upgrade these rooms without going into full blown renovations or spending a fortune. When you don’t own the place, and the landlord is not on board, you are usually left with slightly depressing rooms that you can’t really do much to modernise. Well, enters Totally Wrapped, a Dubai-based wrapping company that can temporarily update the look of any kitchen or bathroom without actually touching at the structure. We trialled the service (they kindly offered me 20% discount on the total quote in exchange for social media coverage of the job) and it’s completely blown my mind.

Goodbye ugly brown tacky kitchen. Hello white marble and matt black cabinetry from heaven. I choose a monochrome look and added pops of colour with accessories. I had this clear vision of what I wanted the room to look like for a while in my mind and kept saving the same images over and over on Pinterest. To complete the look, not only did I go for the full wrapping service but I ended up adding all the final touches that make such a difference, like new handles, ceiling lights, artwork and accessories.

We worked on the transformation over the summer - and I posted about it on Instagram a few weeks later, back in August, once I had done all the styling, installed the new lightings etc and as expected it was a very popular topic! I promised you a full reveal with all the juicy details back then and sadly it’s taken me months but here it is, at last. I tried to answer all the questions I received on social media below. If you still have any queries at the end of this post, please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll respond asap!

How much does it cost? Totally Wrapped will send you a rough quote super quickly by seeing just a few pictures of your kitchen. For ours, we wrapped all the cabinets (exterior only), the island, the worktops and backsplash and the total quote was around 4500AED before the discount. Worth EVERY SINGLE dirham.
How long does it take? Normally they can do it all in one day. For us we had to do it in two separate days as there was an issue when the marble adhesive materials arrived and they had to reordered so the team worked on the cupboards first, while the worktops and backsplash were wrapped the following week.
Does it look good? The detail of the workmanship is really impressive. I was actually blown away watching the team in action. Of course it has nothing on the real deal and no one here pretends that wrapped marble effect adhesive paper looks like Carrara marble but for the budget, it’s really a great product. I cannot imagine how much I would have had to spend to completely upgrade the kitchen to make it look like this. And don’t get me started on the disruption of a full kitchen renovation - weeks of dust and stress. Not something I can handle, especially as it’s not my property!
Will it last? There is a one-year guarantee on all materials so if anything peels off or there is any issue they’ll come and fix it. After that, there is a fixed replacement fee of AED350 for any post installation repairs. We have had ours for five months now and it still looks phenomenal.
Will my landlord be upset and keep my deposit? I don’t think any landlord would penalise you for improving the look of a room but if they did, then all the materials are removable and don’t cause any damage to the original structure. All the adhesive paper can be peeled off without damaging the materials underneath.
Are the materials durable? Five months on, there are a few very light scratches on the main worktop which we use several times a day, and the kids are not exactly ‘careful’ and one very light stain (some coloured foods like turmeric are unforgiving unfortunately, I learned that the hard way) but honestly you wouldn’t notice unless you looked really closely. The rest looks like it did on installation day. Personally for that budget even if it lasts for just a couple of years, I’d still be happy as a clam.
Where all the lighting fixtures from? I sourced these beauties from DragonMart… Yes of course I’d have loved to invest in the real deal (Flos pendant lights have been on my dream list for like, ever!) but this was a very low budget room revamp and I couldn’t justify to blow it on lighting…
Where are all the accessories from? The artwork is from Society 6 (US website that doesn’t ship to Dubai annoyingly - I used my Shop & Ship account) and had them framed locally. The accessories like fruit bowl, vases, trinkets and trays are a mix of Next.ae, Homes for Less, H&M Home, Zara Home and IKEA. The faux leather nude door handles are also from IKEA.
What was the overall budget of the kitchen revamp? All included, kitchen wrap job, lighting, door handles, artwork, accessories, etc, we kept the budget just under AED6500 which if you look at the before shots, will agree is absolutely incredible considering the total transformation of the room!
What else? It really has changed the way we use the kitchen. It used to be a depressing space that I avoided spending time in. Now we have breakfast with the kids every morning in the kitchen and Stella even does her homework while I make her school lunch. I even started cooking! It’s really is a Christmas miracle…

Scroll below for the before and after images and more details images of the space. What do you think?! Who would have thought my kitchen would be the most satisfying room revamps to date?

PS: some progress shots of the Totally Wrapped team in action below!

How I revamped my rental kitchen without kissing my deposit goodbye