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There are so many reason to rent instead of buying, but one of the main concerns is that you can’t do much to the house you’re renting. You normally can’t renovate a house that isn’t yours, and a lot of times rental agreements can be strict on what changes you can make within a home. You want to make your house a “home” and make it cute, but how can you within the confines of a rental agreement?
The Most Important Step: Choose the right rental property to begin with.
Are the countertops that you can’t change going to drive you crazy? Do you like the layout of the space? Is the landlord easy to work with if you do want to change something?
If you chose a rental house or apartment with wall-to-wall carpet but you hate carpet; you have obviously chosen the wrong rental property. Just like when buying a house, make sure you get a place that meets your needs.
Check with your Landlord
For things you can change, make sure your landlord will be okay with the changes. There will likely be times you need your landlord or maintenance to enter your home to fix something, so you don’t want to be afraid of getting “caught” if you did something against your rental agreement.
Even if you literally cannot change anything in a house, there are many temporary fixes you can utilize to make your rental property your style.
Out with the Old, in the with New
First, you want to declutter your stuff and have pretty storage solutions for the stuff you want to keep. This can include having matching dressers or a pretty TV stand if you can’t wall mount your TV or a trendy bar cart.
TV Stands:
Bar Carts:
Cover Flooring with Rugs
To update the flooring, invest in some rugs. There are so many ways to get affordable rugs now that this is almost a cheap update to your home. The benefit of this is you can take the rugs from place to place so it’s not just a temporary fix. Target runs a sale on rugs every couple of months, and you can get great rugs on amazon.
Cover Walls with Paint or Peel & Stick Wallpaper
To update walls that you can’t paint, go to Target or your local home improvement store and get peel & stick wallpaper. It is just a big sticker that goes on the wall that is easily removable when you leave. Some of the brands say you can re-use the stickers but I wouldn’t count on it.
Click here for all the peel & stick wallpaper options on Amazon
Hang Art on the Wall with Command Strips
Command strips make it so you can have your gallery wall and keep your deposit. There are also about a million ways to use command hooks that you would have never thought of. This blog has a pretty good list of all of them:
Basically Cover your Whole Kitchen with Contact Paper
You can cover anything gross in the kitchen with contact paper. You can do much more than line the shelves with contact paper and you should take advantage of this cheap fix. You can:
Cover your floors with it for faux hardwood
Cover your countertop for faux marble countertops
http://www.makedoanddiy.com/2015/10/contact-paper-counter-faux-marble-diy.html
Cover your cabinets with it for easy cleaning
Get faux stainless steel stickers for your appliances
Finish with Beautiful Accessories
When you have multi-functional rooms, such as an office in the bedroom or dining room/living room, make sure you keep the details in mind. Anything that sits out on a surface should be beautiful such as the coffee maker on the kitchen counter or the stapler on your desk. Decide on an aesthetic and stick to it throughout the room.