There’s Another Peel-and-Stick Solution to Upgrade Your Walls (and It’s Not Wallpaper)

Upgrading a rented space can sometimes feel impossible — after all, you’ll need to remain within the confines of a lease, which means you’ll likely not want something too pricey or permanent that can still help your place feel like home.

Peel-and-stick wallpaper has been trending for a while now, and with good reason. It brings color and personality to plain white walls without too much hassle, helping you to make your rental feel more like, well, you.

But if wallpaper isn’t your thing, no sweat. One TikTok user is making the case for peel-and-stick wall molding, and with a little bit of patience, you can step up your pad from standard to sophisticated in no time.

Sandy Saintilus (aka @myuglyapartment on TikTok) has been documenting the transformation of her Atlanta rental since 2022 for her fans and followers. Saintilus recently shared the renter-friendly hack she used to instantly elevate the “boring” walls in the apartment’s main living area, detailing the process of using self-adhesive peel-and-stick molding from Luxe Architectural to give the room a bespoke vibe.

She began by laying out the molding panels before adhering them to the walls, as she was using varying sizes. She then used a level to ensure that the pieces were straight, marking all four corners of each panel with a pencil, removing the backing from each panel as she applied them to her walls.

“These are totally removable, very renter-friendly,” she said. “Luxe Architectural did an amazing job designing these; they are so great. And when I moved onto the big walls, I made sure I marked how far apart each molding was from one another before I put them onto the walls.”

“I was really intimidated by this but I swear it’s not as hard as it looks,” she admitted, adding that if you wanted to make it a more permanent solution, you could simply add caulk.

The end result, per Saintilus? “Elegant textured walls” that her guests can’t stop admiring. “The transformation is undeniable,” she said. “It doesn’t even look like an apartment anymore. A friend of mine came over and was like, “It looks like you live in a condo; it looks like you live in a home. It’s giving gorgeous.” Yep, it’s gorgeous indeed.