Living in a rental can be one of the best or worst experiences, depending on how you make it for yourself. If you’re going to keep everything as it was when you arrived, and sit inside looking at the same four walls all day…then it wholly horrific experience.
If you want to enjoy your time in a rental, here’s ten ways to make the property you inhabit feel a little like home:
Unpack All Your Stuff
Perhaps the most obvious first step but also the most commonly forgotten is unpacking all of your belongings to make your temporary lodgings feel a little bit more like home. The temptation to keep everything in a suitcase stored at the back of a wardrobe will only make the rental feel less comfortable.
Meet Your Neighbours
Even if you’re only spending a few days or weeks in a rental, you don’t need to spend all-day everyday by yourself. Get out and make some friends! It could be awkward trying to make eye contact with, or stop and chat with your neighbours but it’ll be worth it to make your stay a fun and social experience.
Buy Things You Will Keep
Whether they are antique figurines, stamps, or toys from McDonalds ‘Happy Meals’; everyone has some item or items they like to collect. Just because you’re in a rental doesn’t mean you can’t buy keepsakes to put around the place to make it a little more personal.
Add Shelves
Long-term and short-term rentals rarely have enough space for you to put all of your beloved items or miscellaneous nick-nacks. The shelving provided is quickly overtaken by cups, photographs and various necessary objects. To make sure every little item has pride of place in your rental home invest in more shelving, to ensure your keepsakes don’t remain in containers or form a mountain of clutter.
Paint the Walls or Add Posters
The colour schemes of rentals range from shades of sickly yellow, in-your-face reds, and vulgar pinks; which would make even the most assured feel nauseous. To quickly recover from a topsy-turvy tummy, quickly repaint with a colour you like, or if you’re feeling lazy cover it with posters and pictures.
Replace Blinds with Curtains
If you wouldn’t have boring white blinds at home, then don’t settle for them at a rented apartment. Pull them down and add a little colour and personality to the place you’ll be calling home for a little while at least.
Swap Lighting Fixtures
Rentals are only fitted with the most basic and economical light fixtures, that are purely functional rather than stylish. Remove the eyesores from your rental home, and replace them to improve the overall setting.
Cover Floors with a Rug
Shiny wooden floors are the norm in rentals, and they aren’t the greatest to look at being bland and brown. To add a little bit of depth and warmth to an otherwise flat and cold surface, invest in a rug that adds a little bit of you to the floor space.
Plants and Flowers
Nothing says home like potted plants and vases of flowers on tables or in windowsills. They help to create a warm and comfortable atmosphere in almost any environment, no matter how inhospitable it may first appear.
Add Closet Inserts
Space or lack of space is a pretty big issue, with many rentals only supplying a conservatively sized wardrobe. To get around this pretty big issue invest in closet inserts or organisers to put any items that don’t fit in the spaces provided.
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