A 50-Shekel Kitchen: They Renovated a Rented Tel Aviv Apartment Themselves, and the Result Is Stunning

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

Limor Klar, 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 preservation building near the sea in Tel Aviv with her partner of eight years, Yuval Goldal, 25, and their dog Louis. They moved in six months ago, paying high rent but getting a place 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.

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

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

They gave up an old sofa, decided to change the kitchen and add practical elements to it, 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 on the cabinets that cost them 50 shekels on AliExpress. Yuval dismantled the fronts, carefully applied the wallpaper, and above it hung, with nails, a puzzle of checkered wood panels he found on the street. "That was exactly enough to fill the entire area above the cabinets and really lifted the kitchen."

After that, Yuval built a wooden countertop, sealed it so it would be practical to use, painted it walnut-colored and attached it over the original black countertop, which did not match the green at all. "Since there wasn't enough countertop, he also built us an extension out of wood that serves us like a bar to eat on, and he put wallpaper on the TV wall. 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."

Yuval also built coffee tables for the living room from wooden panels 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 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 TV 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 sealed out the noise and cold coming in. We found wooden panels on the street and hung them above the kitchen, and soon we’ll add trailing plants there that will elevate it even more."

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

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