A Kitchen for 50 Shekels: They Renovated Their Rented Tel Aviv Apartment on Their Own, and the Result Is Amazing

A kitchen with wood they found on the street and a green wallpaper for 50 shekels, vintage furniture from Marketplace and lots of DIY, Tal Shapirer and Yuval Goldel turned a neglected Tel Aviv apartment by the sea into a dream home. They even built the window themselves.

Limor Keller, mako Published: 10.06.26, 09:24 | Updated: 10.06.26, 10:21 Photo: Tal Shapirer

Tal Shapirer, 23, a content creator and social media manager, moved into an apartment in a preserved building near the sea in Tel Aviv with her partner of eight years, Yuval Goldel, 25, and their dog Louis. They moved in six months ago at a high rent, but in a condition they did not like, and decided to upgrade it from scratch thanks to his handy skills and her sense of design and DIY, all for just a few hundred shekels and a lot of walking around on foot.

"We came to see the apartment with many other people who wanted it, and I immediately understood that it was my dream apartment, and that there was huge potential there," she says. "We fought for it and in the end signed the lease even though it was in not such a good condition, but I knew Yuval would make all my dreams come true, even the ones that are a bit more complicated at home."

They got started on the transformation right away, especially since anything that needed to be built or fixed was handled by Yuval, saving them the trouble of dealing with professionals. "We are both people who want things to happen here and now, and that is why the whole renovation happened very quickly, within three months."

They gave up an old sofa, decided to change the kitchen and add practical elements, and even went out looking for things on the street and found, for example, a vintage lamp for the bedroom. In the kitchen, which had been white and boring with a black countertop, they decided to stick green wallpaper they bought on AliExpress for 50 shekels on the cabinets. Yuval dismantled the fronts, carefully applied the wallpaper, and hung a jigsaw of wooden boards he found on the street above it with nails. "It was just enough to fill the entire area above the cabinets and really lifted the kitchen."

Yuval then built a wooden countertop, sealed it so it would be practical to use, painted it in a walnut shade and attached it over the original black countertop, which did not suit the green at all. "Since there was not enough countertop, he also built us an extension out of wood that we use like a bar to eat on, and he covered the TV wall with wallpaper. I was responsible for the styling and added plants, some of the lamps we bought at Jumbo for a ridiculous price, and a personal touch."

In addition, Yuval built coffee tables for the living room from wooden boards he found on the street, and the rest of the furniture the two bought on Marketplace at ridiculous prices, such as a sofa for 200 shekels that was dirty and Yuval rented a cleaning machine to clean it himself, or bar stools for 50 shekels each. They replaced the dusty curtains that were in the apartment, and covered white furniture that was already there with wood-pattern wallpaper, such as the nightstands in the bedroom and the area under the television in the living room as mentioned, in order to preserve the home’s design line.

"We were even missing a window. Yuval built a window that blocked out the noise and the cold that got in. We found wooden boards on the street and hung them above the kitchen, and soon we will add trailing plants there that will upgrade it even more."

The bedroom got a styling makeover, and from an all-white room it turned into a room in shades of brown, wicker and wood. She added a narrow rug to match the size of the room and not make it look smaller, a large plant, decorative pillows, plus a long cushion in the rug’s tones.

"The result is wow. We are in love with our apartment after turning it from a simple apartment into a home with character."