Renter-Friendly Budget DIYs You Can Do This Long Weekend (That Actually Look Good)

Faced with a long weekend ahead of you, if you’ve got the itch to do a little DIY project to improve the way your rental home looks, this post’s for you. All from the same insanely stylish rental apartment in a basement, these two projects are fast, affordable and most of all… attractive enough you’d actually like to display.

Hello trendy grid-patterned curtains that look like pricey versions you can buy at Urban Outfitters or Anthropologie. Well guess what? These were made using cheap linen curtains (like these white curtain panels, for example) and a Sharpie. Samantha Nobles, who turned a tiny basement apartment into a truly warm and unique home, writes:

“I am also quite proud of my grid line curtains in the living room. They took FOREVER. I had an itch to incorporate a grid line pattern in the space but knew it would be a phase that would not stick with me forever so I didn’t want to invest too much in pricey panels, so I purchased some cheap white curtains from Target and pumped out those meticulous grid lines using a Sharpie whilst watching a lot of Netflix!”

If you’ve never stared angrily at an ugly overhead ceiling light fixture, have you ever even rented an apartment? Many rentals have those unattractive “boob” fixtures, and if you want something to disguise your ugly fixture, look no further than this idea. “My mind went to work thinking of how I could make this happen—so with 15 bucks, a trip to Michael’s craft store, and a little bit of patience, I ended up with a cute shade to hang from the ceiling to fully encompass and conceal the fixture without obstructing any light from shining through!” wrote Samantha. This is actually the element she chose as her favorite DIY in the entire apartment:

“The flush mount tassel “shade” I handmade to conceal the less-than-appealing light fixture in the bedroom! I used this light fixture from lulu & georgia as inspiration. While I am all for making our rental space look nice, there is a limit to how much we are willing to financially invest, so rather than changing out all the dated flush mounts and fixtures, I thought to myself ‘I’ll cover them with shades!'”