You don't have to own a condo or a house to make your home yours. Rentals can be challenging (unattractive flooring, standard white walls, outdated light fixtures) but there are plenty of ways to work around the problem and tailor your apartment to your own tastes...
1) Use modular furniture that you can customize to fit your space. Casey Marie's sectional sofa, for instance, splits up into chairs or a loveseat. If her next apartment doesn't have room for a full sectional, she can still use it. For other modular furniture ideas, click here.
2) Emile added lofted storage in an oddly shaped area above the kitchen. If your apartment has high ceilings, utilize the space above your kitchen cabinets to build in extra storage.
3) Rhiannon worked with a problem that many renters face: wall-to-wall carpet. By adding bright accents and layering area rugs over the floors, the carpet doesn't seem so bad.
4) If your rental comes with some surprising color choices (like the bright green cabinets in James and Emily's studio), work with it rather than against it. The green tea towels, dishes, and kitchen chairs make their kitchen seem very pulled-together and bright.
5) One of the best ways to streamline a rental apartment is to consolidate your storage and hide it behind closed doors. The chocolate brown wall in this photo from Alex's apartment is actually an IKEA-hacked wardrobe that holds all of his clothes and separates the living room from the bedroom.
6) To really make an apartment your own, hang some artwork. This cluster of pictures from B, Joe, and Rachael's apartment may leave a lot of holes in the wall, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with some spackle and touch-up paint. If your landlord is dead set against any nails going into the wall, try some picture hanging strips instead.
7) Some landlords will allow you to paint as long as you choose a neutral color (like the light gray shown above in Gingerpop's apartment). Even the slightest hint of color can transform an apartment and freshen up the walls. If you can't paint, bring color into your home through furnishings and artwork.
8) Take down those ugly plastic blinds and dress your windows with something a little nicer: roman shades, floor-length curtains, a screen-printed panel... anything that will soften up your room and complement your decor.
9) Replace outdated ceiling lights with something a little more stylish. Gregory wrote a great how-to that includes detailed instructions for switching out a ceiling shade.
10) You don't have to undertake a full-scale renovation to transform your kitchen. For inexpensive and accessible ideas, check out the Kitchn's list of improvements for renters.
Photos: Casey Marie's, Emile, Rhiannon Smith, James and Emily, Alex, Sarah Coffey, Gingerpop, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, Gregory Han, Kyle Freeman
craving that couch... so beautiful!
view pseudodesigns's profile
Changing out the lights really does make a difference. I took down all the hideous and outdated light fixtures in my rental and replaced them with cheap but oh-so chic paper lanterns.
In the main living spaces I put up white but in the bedrooms I put up red and blue.
It looks infinately better and each paper lantern was only $6 from world market!
view Sumhope's profile
I have implemented the third and 8th cure in my apartment
view hima_vasu's profile
I despise the wall colour in the first photo.... my entire apartment was this colour when I movedin. My landlord referred to it as "bone white" but I always thought of it as more of a wanna-be white with a dirty yellow cast. It sucked all the life out of my apartment until I repainted!!!
view alaylam's profile
When my husband and I moved in, there were mostly-dead vertical blinds in the living room. The manager said he'd replace them, but we actually asked him not to. Instead, we just hung inexpensive (like, $20 the pair, woo) ivory-colored Ikea curtains. So much nicer, and when they need cleaning I can just pitch them into the washer. I've been thinking about adding trim of some kind but haven't gotten around to it.
Except for the kitchen lighting, a bathroom fixture that is at least not actually hideous (faint praise), and a not-bad fixture in the hallway, we have no overheads. Cheap but awesome Cost Plus paper lamps to the rescue in the bedrooms and the living room. Also a few occasional lamps from Target.
There's not much we can do about the kitchen lights, sadly; there's no way to switch out the lame recessed fixture we've got over the sink, feh, and its (I kid you not) spring-loaded glass cover got painted in place before we arrived. It was a dead loss, as we had to pry the sucker off to switch out the bulb, which was dead, and the spring broke. (Er... Come to think of it, I should call and see what the landlord has to say about that. Oh dear...) The other fixture isn't that obtrusive, as we have nine-foot ceilings. So I've let well enough alone.
And thanks to AT, I now have an awesome denim-blue dresser in my kitchen. It holds ridiculous amounts of linens, bakeware, storage containers, and odd-sized items like my food processor blades and my food scale. I love you, Craigslist. (Funny; I spent equal amounts on the dresser and on lovely new brushed-nickel drawer pulls that completely transformed the look of the dresser.) I never would have thought of this without you guys, so thank you!
view Elizabeth B's profile
anyone know the source of that L-shaped sofa in photo #5?
view Kpaige13's profile
@Kpaige13: I'm pretty sure that sofa is from Copenhagen (or Denmarket, if you have one). I own the couch version of it. Wasn't horribly expensive as far as couches go but the padding is kinda sagging and losing its modern lines.
view J.L's profile
Personally I love that green kitchen!
view Melissa A.'s profile