The plight of renting an apartment or home is that it’s all temporary. You don’t own the space you’re in, so it seems foolish to customize it. This mindset is limiting because every space needs to feel like home, no matter how long you’re living in it.
If you don’t feel at home, it might be hard to relax after a long day.
Sure, you can’t knock down walls, but there’s plenty to customize in your rental home. Here are some tried and true hacks for your rental space!
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Painting Your Rental Home
You might be too intimidated to ask your landlord to paint your walls. Don’t worry! Generally, you shouldn’t even have to ask unless you’re painting over cabinetry.
As long as your walls have the same vanilla coat of paint when you leave, it doesn’t matter if you paint beforehand. Everything is fixable with another coat of primer and paint.
According to Good Housekeeping, 2022 is the year to be bold with your paint colors. Periwinkle blue is the perfect complement to your rust and gold toned boho décor. Soothing sage greens and dark grays are also good choices to invest in to match those gold details.
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Update With New Hardware and Contact Paper
Hang onto your original hardware and place it in a safe area (that you’ll remember) for your next move. Switching hardware is a simple, affordable way to take old cabinets out of the early 2000s. Go with hardware that coordinates with your paint color. There are no rules in showing off your personality.
Contact paper is a renter’s dream! The paper itself is like self-adhesive wallpaper. There’s several colors and patterns to choose from that make your home renovations easy.
Contact paper is also the perfect way to add wallpaper that fits your style, a new look to your countertop, and even bathroom tile. It also seals as a protective agent against regular wear and tear.
The best way to test your contact paper is to stick your hand on a piece. It should be removed easily. Contact paper that is stickier will tear off paint and leave glue on countertops.
Several renters on TikTok show off their renter- friendly tips on #renterfriendly. One of these renters, Being the Blooms, shows how the right contact paper works on removals:
Use These Tools for a Gallery Wall
Gallery walls are in and with good reason. They’re the perfect way to add a little maximalism to your life. Gallery walls are essentially a wall of framed art or photos that sit as an accent wall in your living room or bedroom.
Drilling 70 holes into your living room wall might not be ideal for a rental home, but gallery walls are the perfect way to capture your personality.
They’ve grown in popularity in the last few years, but this older video from Studio McGee captures the perfect tutorial for your wall:
Swap out nails for renter- friendly strips and putty. Command Picture Hangers, Scotch Mounting Strips, and Quake Hold Museum Putty are the perfect solution that doesn’t damage your walls.
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