Val, check out the Oook "shield" picture hangers for your heavy things. Home Depot carries them. They leave tiny, tiny pinholes that can be repaired pretty much instantly. Like a Q-tip dot of paint is bigger than you need. I'll bet money you could find a craft paint to match the wall color and she would never even know those holes were there. We LOVE them. There are also curtain rods and curtain-rod brackets for the plain white rods (fine for valances, if your valances take contintental rods use a Convert-A-Rod or even a piece of cardboard to fill out the rod pocket) that hook onto the trim rather than needing to be mounted on trim or walls. Walmart has the hook-on rods (not that bad looking, either) and Country Curtains has the hook-on brackets. Not perfect, but far, far better than nothing. Remember that tension rods are your friend, too - IIRC you have gorgeous trim and simple inside-mount curtains would look lovely with it. I can't remember, do you have picture rails or regular crown molding? Probably won't fit your decor but one charming thing I saw once was an old wooden ladder leaned up against a wall (feet anchored by, of all things, cinder blocks wrapped in a nice fabric and hidden behind a table) with a painting hung from it by S-hooks. I was only able to do any real decorating in one of the many, many places I've rented, and man did I get stuck with some ugly-@$$ places. Like the apartment with old-blood red (!!!) painted floors and orangy-brown wheat-sheaf wallpaper. (We hung sheets and those cheesy hippie-tapestries over the walls. Lost our security deposit because of the staple holes in the wallpaper. LOL) Or the apartment that had remained untouched since the 1940s (I was renting in the early 90s, mind you)... the carpet and lino was worn to the backing in traffic lanes through the apartment and faded/browned granny-flower ;-) wallpaper was everywhere. A lady moved into it during WWII and stayed there until she died, not touching a thing, when I snatched up the apartment because I was desperate to get away from a crazy roommate and the landlord was willing to give me a deal on it because it was very noisy - the front windows were seriously about 10 feet from a major logging-truck route (US Route 2 north of Old Town for you Mainers). We would often wake up in the night thinking one of those big trucks was going to come right through the wall and land on the bed! Ohhhh, that 1920s kitchen though - original stove, enormous double-drainboard sink, built-ins... even then I was an old-kitchen ho. :-) Another had been rented by art students who painted murals on the walls and the landlord didn't know to use Kilz before painting so the paints bled through. My ex and I did the old military trick of starching fabric to the walls in that one. DH and I also had one apartment that was white-on-white-on-white, ultramodern, and we were not permitted to put ANYTHING on the walls or windows (there were white vertical blinds). Thankfully we only stayed there a brief time because DH was offered a much better job elsewhere. It was a very depressing apartment. The one place I could really decorate was the house we rented before we bought the last house. The landlord let us paint, albeit only a neutral off-white, and put up curtains and pictures as long as we fixed the holes afterward; we wheedled him into letting us install ceiling fans (which increased the marketability of the place, since A/C is very rare up here) and switch around a couple of light fixtures. We also did a LOT of repairs, and we had to put up with the mondo hassle of sharing the house with a business and occasionally (with no warning, natch) the landlord, so the combination of cheap rent and being able to make the place nice made it tolerable for a while. There's a pretty neat site about rental decorating here, and don't forget Apartment Therapy.

Just wanted to add one more thing I noticed today. Background: I have white liners in all my cabinets. We use the range hood fan 99.9% of the time. We have a 30" electric range with a low cost 30" fan that exhausts outside. I fry things occasionally, DS fries eggs every day but has the fan on high. Today I noticed that in a cabinet close to the range....the white liner has discoloration around where drinking glasses sit. It actually is darker the closer to the range. What does this mean? That even with using the exhaust fan 99.9% of the time dirt particles are getting inside my cabinets closest to the range! Exhaust fans do matter. Yes, you can live a healthy happy life until you are 105 without a fan but particles of stuff WILL go somewhere. If it not for the liners being white I would not notice. I have dark cherry cabinets that I wipe down somewhat regularly so haven't noticed anything there but obviously there is still grime floating around. My lesson to myself and others if you care..... Next time get a hood that extends 3" on each side of the range to increase the capture area. Get a higher quality exhaust fan. Now I feel compelled to clean out all my cabinets which isn't really a bad idea.

Having everything lined up against the wall is not a good look. Can you put the other furniture somewhere else or do away with it altogether? As mentioned, that huge array of photographs is not a good look. Large canvas, or one large and smaller ones on each side, for the wall, and stacks of books on top of the cabinets, with one or two well-chosen more vertical accents will complete the looks. I would not do shelves or even think of putting all those family photos anywhere.

I might look at peel and stick tiles to go on that whole area around the stove, up to the bottom of the fan. They have such great looking ones now for not much $ - or perhaps cover that whole wall with removable wall paper. You could use it even if you add some cabinets there. Also look at a Habitat for Humanity Restore if there is one near you, or watch Craigslist for some kitchen cabinets that you could set there. Add some inexpensive butcherblock on top. Peel and stick tile: Removable wall paper: eta: I see now that the wall is much larger than just behind the stove, so would require more wallpaper than I thought, but it would still look great on that whole wall, if not too expensive for your budget. https://www.brewsterwallcovering.com/peel-and-stick-wallpaper