Top Tips for Sprucing up a Rental Place
Earlier today, one of my co-workers asked me for some advice on what she could do to make her rental place seem a bit nicer, so here are my top tips for sprucing up your rental place. A home is much more than the walls that surround you.
With a few easy and inexpensive decorative additions, it’s easy to make even low cost rentals feel like your own. And having a more home-like rental property will allow you to put your own stamp on a place where you live, even for a while.
1) Ask if you can paint your rental place
I’ve always rented apartments or live/work studios and yet have been able to paint my suites on more than one occasion. Once, I was consulted about the exterior colour selection, and other times I was told it was okay to paint the interior whatever colour I wanted—as they’d be painting it white after we moved anyway. Painting your rental suite often costs money out of your pocket, but if you plan on living there for a while, it may be worth it. You could try asking your landlord if they’d be interested in having you paint (at their expense) if you’ve been there for a while.
2) Put up some framed pictures or artwork
Those taped-up posters don’t do much for classing up a place, so wait for a good sale at a framing shop or a place like Michael’s and decorate your walls! We were afraid to put anything up in our first place, even though we’d been there for 2 years. I hadn’t yet found out the beauty of Command Brand strips—which work well to hang a variety of things without damaging walls.
3) Add a rug
The best thing we did when we were re-decorating our co-op apartment in Vancouver was put down a rug. The floors (throughout) were blue and white checkered linoleum and there was a big black stain across most of the living room. Adding a rug in the living room instantly warmed up the place (physically and otherwise) and made it feel less cheap and temporary.
4) Hang some curtains
It’s fairly easy and inexpensive to put up some curtains or blinds in place of the cheap rental-quality ones that came with the place. We have bought a few different ones over the years and keep putting them up (or sewing new ones) in each place. They let us show a bit of our personality in our place.
What other ideas do you have for sprucing up a rental place?
